Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

BRITISH TRANSPORT COMMISSION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

Read the Third time and passed.

Oral Answers to Questions — COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS

Basutoland and Swaziland

Mr. Brockway: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations what transport facilities exist in Swaziland and Basutoland by rail and road, respectively; under what auspices such facilities are organised; and the number of citizens of the Union of South Africa who are employed in transport in each of the Territories, respectively.

The Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations (Mr. C. J. M. Alport): In Swaziland there are no railways. About 30 transport vehicles are operated by the South African Railways Road Motor Services. Twenty-three other bus services and numerous goods vehicles are operated by local residents. Ninety Europeans, of whom the majority are citizens of the Union of South Africa, are employed on the South African Railways Road Motor Services.
In Basutoland there is one mile of railway, operated by the South African Railways, from the border to Maserus station. One hundred and fifty-nine transport vehicles are operated by local residents, 14 by South African Railways Road Motor Services and 17 by residents in the Union of South Africa. About 30 citizens of the Union are employed in transport.

Mr. Brockway: While thanking the hon. Gentleman for his Answer, may I ask him, first, whether it indicates a very grave absence of railway communication—none in Swaziland and only one mile in Basutoland—and, second, if he is aware of the very grave concern of the peoples of Swaziland and Basutoland at the degree of control which the South African Union is gaining both over buses and the proposed extension of railways to Swaziland?

Mr. Alport: My noble Friend is most concerned that anything possible that can be done to improve the transport facilities in Swaziland and the other Protectorates should be done. I would draw the attention of the hon. Gentleman to the fact that we are in the process of spending £1,200,000 on road improvements in Swaziland and £170,000 on road improvements in Basutoland. So far as the railway position in Swaziland is concerned. I would remind the hon. Gentleman of the Report produced by Sir Arthur Griffin not long ago with regard to the potentiality in Swaziland which is still being studied by my Department.

Mr. Brockway: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations how many times the High Commissioner for the High Commission Territories has visited the recognised native authorities and the Paramount Chiefs of Basutoland and Swaziland during the years 1955, 1956 and 1957, respectively.

Mr. Alport: In 1955, four times in Basutoland and five in Swaziland. In 1956, three times in Basutoland and three in Swaziland. Early in 1957, the High Commissioner made a tour of Basutoland, in the course of which he paid numerous such visits. He has been in the United Kingdom on leave from May to September this year.

Mr. Brockway: In view of the fact that the High Commissioner's headquarters are outside the Protectorates, at Pretoria in the South African Union, and that, alone in the whole sphere of the British Commonwealth, the High Commissioner has the power by decree to legislate, is not it desirable that he should have much closer contact than he has now with the peoples of the Protectorates?

Mr. Alport: The High Commissioner has very close contacts both through the resident commissioners and the Deputy High Commissioner, people who are charged with the responsbiility of Protectorate business in the High Commissioner's office.

Maldive Islands (Air Staging Base)

Mr. Brockway: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations what discussions have taken place with the authorities in the Maldive Islands and the Ceylon Government regarding the establishment of military bases in the island; how many persons resident on the island of Gan will be displaced to provide the projected British air base; what consultation took place with them or their representatives prior to this decision; where they are to be transferred; what arrangements are being made for their livelihood and accommodation; and what compensation is being given to them.

Mr. Alport: As the Answer to the hon. Gentleman's six questions is inevitably a long one, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Brockway: I readily agree that there is reason for circulation of the Answer, but may I just ask the hon. Gentleman—because it seems to me important—whether it is a fact that 800 natives in Gan will be evicted from their homes and their fields as a result of the air base being established there? What steps are the Government taking to see that they get proper conditions of transference and compensation?

Mr. Alport: Perhaps I may read to the House the final paragraph of the Answer. It is as follows:
The Government of the Maldives have informed us that the inhabitants"—
of the island the hon. Gentleman referred to—
have been consulted and have expressed a wish to be resettled on the adjacent Island of Fedu in the same atoll. Detailed arrangements for this are now being made by the Maldives Prime Minister. The United Kingdom Government have agreed in principle to meet the cost of resettlement, the details of which are still being worked out in consultation with the Maldives Government.

Following is the Answer:

There have been no proposals for the establishment of military bases, in the accepted sense, in the Maldives. The R.A.F. airfield being re-established on Gan Island is to be an air staging post which will supplement existing Commonwealth communications on the route to Australia, New Zealand and the Far East.

As regards consultation with the Government of the Maldive Islands, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave on 24th January last to the hon. Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison). The Government of Ceylon (which has no responsibility in relation to the Maldives) and certain other Commonwealth Governments were informed of our intention before the announcement was made.

There are approximately 870 inhabitants of Gan Island. Consultation with the Government of the Maldives covered the question of resettlement elsewhere by that Government of the existing residents not actually needed to operate the airfield.

The Government of the Maldives have informed us that the inhabitants have been consulted and have expressed a wish to be resettled on the adjacent Island of Fedu in the same atoll. Detailed arrangements for this are now being made by the Maldives Prime Minister in person. The United Kingdom Government have agreed in principle to meet the cost of resettlement, the details of which are still being worked out in consultation with the Maldives Government.

Ghana (Volta River Project)

Mr. E. L. Mallalieu: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations if Her Majesty's Government will reconsider their decision of 27th July, 1956, not to commit themselves to participate in the financing of the Volta River Scheme until a general assessment of the project has been made by the International Bank and agreement of the framework has been reached between the Governments of the United Kingdom and Ghana and the aluminium companies.

Mr. Mason: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, in view of the urgent necessity to start the Volta River project in Ghana,


if he will reconsider his decision of 27th July, 1956, and forthwith intervene in the matter to speed up the decision.

Mr. Willey: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations if, with a view to accelerating completion of the project, he will reconsider his decision of 27th July, 1956, and commit Her Majesty's Government to participate in the financing of the Volta River scheme.

Mr. Alport: As my right hon. Friend explained in answer to a Question on 27th July, 1956, the report of the Preparatory Commission on the Volta River Project showed that there were certain conditions which would be prerequisite to any decision about the implementation of this project. Some of the major decisions which would be necessary can only be taken by the aluminium companies, whose contributions of capital to the project would be large. The Government of Ghana are in touch with the United Kingdom Government and the aluminium companies about the project. In these circumstances, the United Kingdom Government must await the outcome of the discussions between the Ghana Government and the aluminium companies; the results of these discussions will no doubt be communicated to the United Kingdom Government in due course.

Mr. Mallalieu: Are not the Government aware that this project, though, perhaps, not so attractive from the point of view of commercial investment as it once was, is still very attractive? Somebody must take the initiative at some stage. Is it not much better, rather than to leave it to somebody else, that the Government should take this initiative? Are not the Government aware that there is a very large fund of opinion in this country which wishes to help this new State to diversify its economy? Shall we not risk pushing that new State into, perhaps, unorthodox directions if we are not more forthcoming in this matter?

Mr. Alport: The Government have made quite clear their continuing interest in this project, but it is a highly technical project dependent upon commercial considerations in which the other bodies concerned, the aluminium companies, naturally must have strong and important views.

Mr. Mason: Cannot the hon. Gentleman do something to speed up this decision? Is he aware that this hesitancy and indecision only make it more attractive for Russia to step in and wean these new, independent States from the Commonwealth?

Mr. Alport: I am quite certain from everything that has been said by the Prime Minister of Ghana that he is fully aware of the importance of this scheme and very anxious to go ahead with it as quickly as possible, and the hon. Member can be assured that the Government of Ghana will leave no step untried in order to get a satisfactory result, but I would draw the hon. Member's attention to the points which I made in my original Answer.

Mr. Bottomley: Is not this a case in which the Commonwealth Development Finance Company could provide some help?

Mr. Alport: It is a matter for that company and for the Government of Ghana.

Raw Materials (Report)

Mr. Aitken: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations when the Commonwealth Economic Committee will have completed its inquiry into Commonwealth raw materials; and when the Report will be available.

Mr. Alport: I would refer my hon. Friend to my Answer to a similar Question from my hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine) on 21st November.

Mr. Aitken: Without in any way denigrating the usefulness of those Reports, which, however, are mainly only economic information services, may I ask my hon. Friend whether he does not think it is probably time now to initiate a really effective investigation of the raw materials position in the Commonwealth, possibly along the lines of the Paley report in the United States or of the Gordon Commission in Canada?

Mr. Alport: I understand that the Committee's Report, the first volume of which is now in being, is really along those lines, but if my hon. Friend has any further views on this, perhaps it would be better for us to discuss it together.

Basuto Students (United Kingdom)

Mr. G. Thomas: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations the number of African students from Basutoland at present studying in the United Kingdom, and the number who have received Government scholarships for the years 1955–57, respectively; and what qualifications are required for the acquisition of such scholarships.

Mr. Alport: Fourteen Basuto students are at present studying in the United Kingdom. During the years 1955–57 the following numbers of Government scholarships were granted to Basuto for study in the United Kingdom: 1955, 6; 1956, 6; and 1957, 2.
The qualifications required by the institutions to which the students are going are required for the acquisition of such scholarships. Other scholarships were provided by the British Council, the Basuto National Treasury and the Sethabathaba Fund.

Mr. Thomas: While thanking the hon. Gentleman for that reply, may I ask him whether he is not a little dissatisfied with the figures? They seem to me very poor figures for such a large area.

Mr. Alport: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we should like to get more, provided that there are those qualified for this higher education, and to take full advantage of the opportunities.

Education Service, Swaziland

Mr. G. Thomas: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations the average weekly wages paid to African and European teachers and other staff, respectively, in the Education Department of Swaziland.

Mr. Alport: As the Answer contains a large number of figures, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Thomas: Yes, but I am very interested to know whether there is very much disparity. Maybe the hon. Gentleman could tell me that at once?

Mr. Alport: The education service in Swaziland, like the Civil Service as a whole, is divided into senior and junior divisions. The senior division in the education service is manned entirely by Europeans, and the junior division by Africans.

The responsibilities and qualifications for the two are not parallel. Therefore, the remuneration is not parallel either.

Following is the answer:


SALARIES OF EMPLOYEES OF THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT, SWAZILAND


SENIOR SERVICE


Post
Basic Salary



£


Director of Education

1,650 (fixed)


Education Officer including School Principal
Male
625–1,515


Female
556–1,212


Vice Principal

625–1,290


Teacher, Grade I
Male
600–1,020


Female
500–816


Teacher, Grade II
Male
550–940


Female
460–752


Teacher, Grade III
Female
400–584


Matron

330–535


330–460


Assistant Matron

300–420


Trade Instructor

625–940


Male Clerk

475–940


Lady Clerk

340–556


JUNIOR SERVICE


Clerk, Higher Grade

375–705


Clerk, Grade I

96–480


Assistant Education Officer

375–705


Supervisor of Schools

96–480


Assistant Trade Instructor

96–480


Demonstrator

96–480


Teacher, Grade I

96–480


Teacher, Grade II

96–285


Teacher, Grade III

96–195


Miscellaneous subordinate Staff

96–285


Office Messenger

78–120


NOTES:


 (1) None of the above senior service posts is at present held by an African.


 All the above junior service posts are at present held by Africans.


 (3) A cost-of-living allowance is payable to all members of the Department except the Housekeepers and Matrons, at the rate of 15½ per cent. of basic salary for male married officers, subject to a maximum of £170 10s. per annum, and 7¾ per cent. for single officers and women, subject to a maximum of £85 5s. per annum.

Afforestation, Swaziland

Mr. George Craddock: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations the number of Swazi Africans who are employed in positions, other than that of labourer, in the afforestation schemes; the minimum wage paid to labourers; and to what extent the Paramount Chief and Council of Swaziland are consulted about such schemes.

Mr. Alport: The answer to the first part of the Question is 546; to the second


part, 2s. 4d. a day, plus rations, quarters and medical attention. As regards the third part, the Paramount Chief and Council are consulted on all proposals for the afforestation of land belonging to the Swazi nation.

Mr. Craddock: While thanking the Under-Secretary of State for that reply, may I ask him whether the wages paid are the same for blacks and whites? Is there any discrimination? Are there even opportunities for Africans and whites to qualify for the higher-paid posts? In future, will the Under-Secretary ensure that Africans are brought in on all consultations?

Mr. Alport: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the Paramount Chief and the Council are brought into consultation on all matters which affect the interests of the Swazi nation. As to details of the comparable wages paid to Europeans and Africans, perhaps the hon. Gentleman would be good enough to put down a Question.

Middle East (Mr. Menzies' Statement)

Mr. P. Noel-Baker: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations what proposals for a settlement in the Middle East have been made to him by the Prime Minister of Australia; and whether he will make a statement.

Mr. Alport: I assume that the right hon. Gentleman refers to a speech which Mr. Menzies made to the Federal Council of the Australian Liberal Party on 21st October of which a copy has been supplied to the United Kingdom Government by the Australian Government. As my right hon. Friend, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, said on 8th November, Her Majesty's Government agree whole-heartedly with what Mr. Menzies said regarding the objectives we must strive to achieve if the problems of this troubled area are to be solved. Her Majesty's Government recognise Mr. Menzies' statement as being both timely and constructive, but for the present there is nothing I can usefully add to the Minister of State's remarks.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Is not it a fact that the Government said nothing to give Mr. Menzies support until I raised the matter

in the debate on 8th November? Have the Government, in the light of what has happened since then, no plans for giving support to Mr. Menzies' very statemanslike proposals in the Assembly of the United Nations?

Mr. Alport: I think that Mr. Menzies is already very well aware of the importance we always attach to any statement he may make on matters of this sort.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Would not it help to promote Commonwealth co-operation if we sometimes said we agreed with a statesmanlike proposal?

Mr. Alport: I refer the right hon. Gentleman to the statement by the Minister of State on this subject, which was made within a matter of days of Mr. Menzies' statement, and which did display the fact that we took the greatest encouragement from what Mr. Menzies said.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Was it not made only after I had raised the matter in debate?

Kashmir (Situation)

Mr. Donnelly: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations whether he will make a further statement on British policy at the United Nations towards the Kashmir problem, in view of the fact that the resolution supported by Her Majesty's Government has now been vetoed in the Security Council.

Mr. Alport: The hon. Member is incorrect in stating that the resolution has been vetoed, as no vote has yet been taken in the Security Council. Yesterday, the representative of Sweden put forward an amendment to the resolution, which will no doubt be discussed in the Security Council perhaps within a matter of hours. It remains the desire of Her Majesty's Government to support any proposal which may lead towards the peaceful solution of the Kashmir situation. If, after a full study of the terms of the Swedish representative's proposals, they prove likely to achieve this end, they will receive our support.

Mr. Donnelly: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the veto point is a pure technicality because the Soviet delegate said he would vote against it if, indeed, the resolution were ever called? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that what


I am really seeking to know is the Government's policy in this matter? Would he address himself to the question I asked—why is it necessary for the British Government to take a specific position in a dispute between two Commonwealth partners, which they are scrupulously careful to avoid doing in connection with the issue of South African affairs when they are introduced in the United Nations?

Mr. Alport: The Kashmir dispute is one before the Security Council of which we are a member, and, therefore, we are under an obligation to co-operate with other members of the Security Council to try to achieve a peaceful solution of this problem.

Mr. Donnelly: On a point of order. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION

School Children (Dental Treatment)

Mr. John Hall: asked the Minister of Education if routine or emergency dental treatment is available at school or welfare clinics for all school children.

The Minister of Education (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd): The duty of local education authorities to provide free dental treatment for school children extends only to pupils at maintained schools.

Mr. Hall: Would not my right hon. Friend think it wrong that any child suffering pain should be denied emergency treatment at a clinic merely because he or she is the pupil of a private school? If he does not agree with me, will he take steps to have the posters which declare that "No child need suffer pain" altered to read "No child need suffer pain unless a pupil of a private school"?

Mr. Lloyd: In general I agree with my hon. Friend. He wrote to my predecessor bringing to his attention the case of a girl who was refused treatment. I have taken up that case with the Buckinghamshire Local Education Authority and, although the case itself cannot be traced, the authority says that its policy is not to refuse treatment to any child in pain, irrespective of the strict legal obligation.

Youth Service

Mr. Moss: asked the Minister of Education whether he will give an assurance that the youth service is to be a permanent part of the education service.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Moss: Is the Minister aware that there has been a growing disillusionment about this service and that one of the latest examples of it was made apparent in the Times Educational Supplement last week? Does the Minister agree that there has been increasing disillusionment, and will he explain why this is so?

Mr. Lloyd: I think that that would be a better subject for debate, but I hope that my Answer will help.

Miss Burton: Is the Minister aware that a recent report from the Select Committee, which is of course an all-party committee of the House, expressed very great concern about the attitude of his predecessors towards the youth service? May we expect a somewhat more forceful lead and a more urgent one from the right hon. Gentleman in the near future?

Mr. Lloyd: I must restrict myself to the formal statement that my reply will be made in the proper manner.

Mr. Moss: asked the Minister of Education to what extent he has considered the effect which the proposal to institute a block grant may have upon the youth service; and whether he will make a statement.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: I see no reason why the introduction of the general grant should affect the youth service adversely.

Mr. Moss: But does not the Minister agree that if local authorities have to economise because of the increasing burden of the rates, the youth service may be considered expendable?

Mr. Lloyd: I do not think that the hon. Member or the House ought to assume that the introduction of the general grant will mean that there will be less money available.

Scientific Policy (Advisory Council's Report)

Mr. Moss: asked the Minister of Education to what extent he has considered the Annual Report of the


Advisory Council on Scientific Policy, 1956–57, paragraph 35; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: I agree with the views expressed in this paragraph.

Grammar School Places, Wales

Mr. G. Thomas: asked the Minister of Education the respective proportion of the school population able to obtain grammar school places in each of the Welsh education authorities in the years 1920, 1940, and 1957, respectively.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: This information is not available in the precise form asked for. I am writing to the hon. Member.

Mr. Thomas: Will the Minister hurry up and get me the information? He will be able to correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that he will find that owing to the "bulge" now reaching secondary schools in Wales it is far harder for a child to get to the secondary grammer school now than it was six years ago.

Mr. Lloyd: These are complicated statistics, but I hope to sign a letter to the hon. Member this afternoon.

Secondary Modern Schools (Building Programme)

Mr. Dye: asked the Minister of Education how many county educational authorities will have completed their school building programme so that secondary modern education is available to all their children for whom it is intended by 1960; and in how many counties their schemes will be incomplete by that date.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: Fourteen and 49.

Mr. Dye: asked the Minister of Education what effect the recent decision of the Government to retard the reorganisation of education in rural areas will have upon the programme of modern secondary school building in Norfolk.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: The building of two schools is being deferred.

Mr. Dye: Does not the right hon. Gentleman recognise that deferment of the building of these schools prevents a number of children in that area from having the advantage of secondary education and that a further deferment will create a still worse disadvantage?

Mr. Lloyd: That is inevitable in the process of the delay of this programme. While, of course, I very much regret the delay, progress has been made in Norfolk. Four schools have already been completed, seven are under construction, and one will be started in 1958–59.

Mr. M. Stewart: Do not the terms of the answer to Question No. 18 show that the kind of action wanted from the Government, if any, is one which would have expedited rather than retarded the programme in Norfolk?

Mr. Lloyd: Surely that question applies to the whole field of investment. It is not for me at this moment to enter into that general question. We know that it is necessary slightly to slow down the rate of expansion.

Mr. Stewart: The right hon. Gentleman says that it is not for him at this moment to enter into the general question. When does he feel that he will be in a sufficiently established position to raise that question with his colleagues?

Mr. Lloyd: The general question is one which has been much debated in the House.

Mr. Dye: asked the Minister of Education his estimate of the number of children who will be taught in unreorganised schools in Norfolk when the secondary modern schools, at present being built, are completed; and what proportion this is of the total school population.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: About 2,200, or about one-ninth of the seniors.

Mr. Dye: Does not the Minister recognise that deferment of the building of these schools at this particular time will cause in the future an undue burden to be laid on the local authorities when they have to find the money for these schools out of the block grant?

Mr. Lloyd: I do not accept that.

Technical College, Uxbridge

Mr. Beswick: asked the Minister of Education if he has now received detailed proposals for the first stage of the Uxbridge Technical College; if he has agreed these proposals; and when he anticipates that building will begin.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: No, Sir, but I hope building will begin in 1959.

Mr. Beswick: Can the Minister say what is happening in this business? Both the local education authority and the Minister say that they have dispatched letters to each other which have got lost in the post; and parents, potential students and local industry want to know when a start is to be made on the preparatory work. Who is responsible for the delay? Is it the Minister's Department or the local education authority?

Mr. Ede: Or the Post Office?

Mr. Lloyd: The fact is that we have not yet received at the Ministry the submission of the Middlesex Local Education Authority, but we hope that we shall be receiving it soon.

Minor Works Programme

Dr. King: asked the Minister of Education the total minor works programme for all local education authorities for 1957; and the total amount he has proposed to them for the next 15 months.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: Excluding work for the school meals service, £14 million and £11·2 million respectively.

Dr. King: Is the Minister aware that the minor works programme not only includes new school places, with which I am sure he will not tamper, but also the brightening up and cleaning of the slum schools of England and the provision of laboratories for science and of decent, modern sanitation? Will the Minister at least put the laboratories and the lavatories back in the programme?

Mr. Lloyd: A good deal of the brightening up is done under maintenance, but I naturally regret that these important provisions for schools have had to be deferred.

Rural Reorganisation

Dr. King: asked the Minister of Education how many projects he has cut out of the local education authorities' proposals for rural reorganisation in the 1958–59 programme.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: Thirty-one.

Dr. King: Is the Minister aware that this is a most serious setback in the provision of adequate education for village

children? Is he aware that the rural education authorities were inspired when the President of the Board of Trade asked them to get rid of all-age schools in five years? Will the Minister consider sympathetically the representations that he is bound to receive from rural education authorities to restore some of these cuts?

Mr. Lloyd: This is a slowing down of a very important programme. That cannot be denied, and obviously everybody would like to see it quickened up when circumstances are propitious.

Mr. Stewart: Has not it been made apparent in earlier questions from both sides of the House that educational opportunities for children in rural areas are in many ways inferior to those afforded in urban areas? Is not it peculiarly unfortunate that, if the Government have to conduct an attack on education at all, the spearhead of that attack should be in the rural areas?

Mr. Lloyd: We all want to make progress, but the fact is that we have had to slow down progress in this field.

New Technical Colleges

Mr. E. Fletcher: asked the Minister of Education how many new technical colleges have been started since the publication of the White Paper on Technical Education in February, 1956.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: Eighteen new colleges and 79 major extensions of existing colleges.

Mr. Fletcher: I am sure that the whole House will welcome that. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] May we also have an assurance from the Minister that this ambitious programme, which aroused such enthusiasm in February of last year, is being carried through with the necessary impetus to ensure the earliest possible success?

Mr. Lloyd: I think so, because in addition to what I think are the quite impressive figures that I have given to the House, final plans for five more new colleges and 17 further major extensions of a total value of £5 million have been approved, although work on them has not actually started. We have already prepared sketch plans for a further 14 new colleges and 28 major extensions, to the value of over £8 million.

Technical Education (Pad-time Students)

Mr. E. Fletcher: asked the Minister of Education how many part-time students are now engaged in higher technical education.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: Thirty-one thousand, seven hundred day students in 1955–56. Figures for evening students are not available.

Mr. Fletcher: Would the Minister tell us whether that is as many as he hopes to obtain or whether he is hoping that the number will increase next year or in the following year?

Mr. Lloyd: I sincerely hope that it will increase. We think it will increase, at least in proportion to the general Government plans over the years, to at least double the number.

Adult Education

Mr. M. Stewart: asked the Minister of Education whether he will remove the financial restrictions on adult education imposed by his Department in March, 1957.

Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: No, Sir, not in present circumstances.

Mr. Stewart: Has the right hon. Gentleman considered the wise and splendid words written on this subject by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) when an earlier attack was launched by this Government on adult education, when he said:
There is perhaps no branch of our vast educational system which should more attract within its particular sphere the aid and encouragement of the State than adult education…. The appetite of adults to be shown the foundations and processes of thought"—

Hon. Members: Speech.

Mr. Stewart: —"will never be denied by a British Administration cherishing the continuity of our island life.

Mr. Speaker: Order. That is quite enough. The hon. Member should give us his own views rather than the views of someone else.

Mr. Stewart: With respect, Mr. Speaker, I thought I might legitimately quote from an example of what the same

right hon. Gentleman calls, in a part I have refrained from quoting, "the ever-conquering English language." I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether or not he wishes to cherish the continuity of our island life in the way recommended by his right hon. Friend.

Mr. Lloyd: Certainly. Sir; but in view of what the hon. Gentleman has said, it is remarkable that there was not much greater financial provision made by himself and his right hon. and hon. Friends than by the present Government.

Mr. Nabarro: Rub it in. A very polished performance.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE

Dutch Flower Bulbs (Import Quota)

Sir T. Moore: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in view of the desirability of providing for the greatest possible interchange of trade between Great Britain and Holland, arrangements can now be made to do away with the quota, recently reimposed, on the importation of Dutch flower bulbs into this country; and if he proposes, as a matter of general policy, to press forward as rapidly as possible with all reductions in trade barriers between this country and Europe where practical and desirable, or to maintain these barriers with a view to giving Great Britain a better bargaining position when the principles of European free trade are agreed.

The President of the Board of Trade (Sir David Eccles): Our policy is to remove the remaining import controls as quickly as the balance of payments permits, but I regret I cannot remove the restrictions on imports of Dutch flower bulbs at present. The quota for this year is £3,200,000.

Sir T. Moore: But as domestic production in this country does not satisfy domestic demand, and as my proposal seems to coincide with proposed Ministerial policy, would not my right hon. Friend think again about this matter?

Sir D. Eccles: I will do so as soon as the balance of payments situation permits.

Foreign Firms, United Kingdom (Government Finance)

Mr. Hamilton: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will give an assurance that no financial assistance will be given by his Department to foreign firms seeking to establish themselves in Great Britain if such firms threaten competing with British interests, especially Scottish firms.

Sir D. Eccles: Applications from foreign firms for Government-financed factories to be provided under the Distribution of Industry Acts are considered on their merits. The tests are whether a firm would contribute to employment in the area and to the strength of the local and national economy.

Mr. Hamilton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the paper industry in Fife is deeply concerned about rumours that the Government have granted a Dutch paper manufacturing firm £40,000, and that this is a firm which has competed with the Fife industry? Also, is he aware that, coupled with the closure of textile factories in Fife already, this is causing tremendous concern among those employed in those industries?

Sir D. Eccles: I am not familiar with the case, but I believe that the factory is to be in Northern Ireland, in which case it is a matter for the Government of Northern Ireland and not for me.

Sir J. Hutchison: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the establishment of foreign firms in this country has in many cases, and particularly in Scotland, brought great benefit not only in dollars but also in employment?

Sir D. Eccles: Yes, Sir.

British Products (Japanese Copies)

Mr. Peyton: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will take steps to protect British manufacturers and exporters from unfair competition arising out of the use by Japanese firms of wrappings which are precise copies of those designed and used by British manufacturers.

Sir D. Eccles: Our law and the law of most countries, including Japan, provides means by which manufacturers can protect themselves against unfair competition of this kind, particularly when

their trade marks or registered designs have been copied. In a number of cases of copying by factories in Japan, the authorities and trade associations there have taken effective action; and we are always prepared to take up such cases with them.

Mr. Peyton: May I ask my right hon. Friend if he will be good enough to look at a case which I will send him? If so, he will find that there are instances of not only the same design being used but of a quite unauthorised and improper use being made of the firm's name and registered trade mark? Does not he agree that this practice, which has been growing, but evidence of which is difficult to get, amounts to an unwarrantable, scandalous breach of all international trading standards which should be accepted and without which there cannot be any good faith in commerce?

Sir D. Eccles: I shall be glad to look at any information which my hon. Friend cares to send me.

Location of Industry

Mr. Hamilton: asked the President of the Board of Trade what proposals he has in mind for the modification of the present location of industry policy; and, in particular areas where redundancy is threatened, what new measures, of assistance are contemplated.

Sir D. Eccles: I am satisfied that our existing policy and- powers are appropriate to the needs of the situation.

Mr. Hamilton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in parts of Fife there is a very real fear of redundancy and, indeed, that some redundancy has already taken place? Will he give an assurance that where a local authority expresses a certain willingness to help itself in the provision of factory space, Government encouragement and material help will he forthcoming?

Sir D. Eccles: The Secretary of State for Scotland and I are always willing to look at any specific cases that are brought to us.

Machine Tools (Export Embargo)

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the President of the Board of Trade (1) if he is aware that British firms are prevented from exporting to Russia types of


machine tools less advanced than those now being imported into this country from Czechoslovakia and Eastern Germany; and whether he will reconsider these restrictions in the light of the machine tool industry's need for additional export business;
(2) on what technical advice from outside his Department he drew up the list published in the Board of Trade Journal for June of 40 classes of machine tools embargoed for export to Russia and a further 10 classes subject to quantitative limitation.

Sir D. Eccles: The list was based on the recommendations of the Paris Consultative Group. I am aware that a small number of tools of the types listed have been imported from Czechoslovakia, though I would not agree that they are more advanced in design than our own product. We do our best to avoid marginal anomalies of this kind and next time the current arrangements for machine tools are reviewed in the Paris Group we will discuss this case with the other members.

Mr. Allaun: Is the Minister aware that Lancashire and other firms are anxious to accept such orders, and that recently a large Czechoslovak boring and turning mill was installed here of a type which we have been prevented from selling to them? Is not that a crazy situation, and is not the Minister's first responsibility to the British Parliament and public to see that regulations are not anomalous, damaging and out of date?

Sir D. Eccles: Yes, I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but we have to discuss these matters with the other members of the group.

Mr. Jay: As the original purpose of these restrictions was to limit technical advance in the Soviet Union, is the President of the Board of Trade really satisfied that in their present form they are serving any useful purpose now?

Sir D. Eccles: They need to be reviewed, and they will be reviewed.

Mr. Nabarro: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Anglo-Czech Trade Agreement, concluded by his Department last year, has brought considerable benefits to the British engineering industry, including a new export trade from my constituency to Czechoslovakia?

Flame-Resistant Fabrics

Mrs. L. Jeger: asked the President of the Board of Trade when he expects to implement proposals for the indication of the flammability of fabrics.

Sir D. Eccles: The British Standards Institution is at present engaged in the preparation of a standard for flame-resistant fabrics. Complex technical considerations are involved and it would be unwise to press for hasty conclusions. Once that standard is available I hope to be able to make corresponding amendments to the Regulations under the Fabrics (Misdescription) Act, 1913.

Mrs. Jeger: Is the Minister aware that a regrettably large number of accidents are arising from clothing catching fire, and can he give the House an assurance that no time will be lost in introducing standards to give customers some measure of information and protection when they are shopping?

Sir D. Eccles: Like the hon. Lady. I am disappointed at the delay, but apparently there are grave technical difficulties concerning durability.

Flick-Knives

Captain Pilkington: asked the President of the Board of Trade what are the trades in which flick-knives are used.

Mr. Janner: asked the President of the Board of Trade (1) the number of flick-knives imported into this country during this year, and the number from each of the respective countries of origin;
(2) what trades find it essential to have flick-knives available.

Sir D. Eccles: I understand that these knives are used by fishermen, seamen, farmers, butchers, cobblers, blacksmiths and electricians. Flick-knives are not separately distinguished in the trade statistics.

Captain Pilkington: Can my right hon. Friend say why ordinary knives cannot be used equally effectively in these trades? Could not they be kept in sheaths, and would they not be as effective? Also, does not he agree that on other considerations these knives are very undesirable?

Sir D. Eccles: I think that the answer to my hon. and gallant Friend is that some men have to work with one hand,


that sometimes their hands are very cold, and that it is of real assistance to them to be able to flick out the blade.

Mr. Janner: Why has not the Minister answered my Questions? I asked in what trades it is essential to use these knives. What kind of inquiries is he making in the matter? Is he aware that an investigation was carried out in Leicester recently by the Leicester Mercury in which a blacksmith who had been in the trade for 40 years said he had never heard of these knives being used in Leicester or Leicestershire, and that they were not required? Is he also aware that the head of a cutlery firm stated that he had never heard of the use of these knives in any trade? Are they essential, or is murder to continue? Why did not the Minister answer my other Question? I asked from what countries these knives, these murderous weapons, were obtained. The right hon. Gentleman has not answered that at all. I now ask him to answer it.

Sir D. Eccles: I apologise for not answering that second point. The knives are imported from Western Germany and Italy. With regard to the hon. Gentleman's first point, I am informed that certain men in these industries find the knives essential. I suppose there are blacksmiths and blacksmiths. Also, the Sheffield cutlery trade does not make these knives, and so, probably, it does not know where they are used.

Government Flax Factories

Mr. G. Jeger: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has now disposed of all the Government flax mills; how many of the factory premises are now being used; and how many are unoccupied and idle.

Sir D. Eccles: Of the ten Government flax factories in operation when it was decided to discontinue the Home Flax Scheme nine have been closed and the tenth will close in March next. Of the nine factories five have been sold, one has been sold subject to completion of contract, and negotiations are proceeding for the sale of the other three.

Mr. Jeger: Will the right hon. Gentleman take all possible steps to ensure that the factories are put into use again so

that local people do not remain unemployed after he has closed them?

Sir D. Eccles: Yes, Sir. I consider that when selling them.

Port of Goole

Mr. G. Jeger: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware of the continuing decline of trade at the port of Goole; and whether he will conduct an investigation into its cause with a view to taking steps to improve the position.

Sir D. Eccles: I will consider the position at Goole in consultation with my right hon. Friend, the Minister of Transport, and will write to the hon. Member in due course.

Mr. Jeger: Will the right hon. Gentleman take into account the fact that the trade at Goole port depends very largely on the National Coal Board, the Central Electricity Authority and the British Transport Commission, and will he consider calling an all-party, all-trades conference in Goole to consider the present position and ways of improving it?

Sir D. Eccles: I think I had better first talk to my right hon. Friend.

Potatoes (Import)

Lady Tweedsmuir: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will reconsider his refusal to allow the import of table ware potatoes from Holland, owing to the general failure of the crop in Scotland.

Sir D. Eccles: As my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food explained in answer to Questions on 25th November, this matter is under consideration.

Lady Tweedsmuir: When my right hon. Friend comes to what I hope will be a speedy decision, will he bear in mind that substantial imports will be needed, because the shortage is expected to be acute in January, which will result in rocketing prices and will hit the housewife very hard?

Sir D. Eccles: I will convey what my hon. Friend has said to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.

Oral Answers to Questions — ATOMIC ENERGY ESTABLISHMENT, WINDSCALE (ACCIDENT)

Mr. F. Anderson: asked the Prime Minister if the local management at Windscale works was wholly and solely responsible for the major decisions made during the time of the accident at Windscale on 10th October, 1957; or if submissions had to be made to the Atomic Energy Authority headquarters or some other authority before being announced to the public.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): The works general manager at Windscale was responsible for decisions taken following the accident on 10th October. The Director of Production at the Authority's Industrial Group Headquarters, with whom the works general manager would normally have kept in touch, happened to be at Windscale at the time and decisions were taken after consultation with him.

Mr. Anderson: Is the Prime Minister aware that there has been very strong condemnation in the locality of the lack of information early enough for people to understand what the position was? Will he in the course of the investigations which are taking place now take into consideration the fact that general information was given very late in the day?

The Prime Minister: I am sure the hon. Gentleman has studied the White Paper carefully, and I think it is clear from paragraph 4 of Annexe I that the Chief Constable of Cumberland was warned of the possibility of an emergency shortly after midnight on 10th October. The men in the factory were warned of an emergency, and given instruction to stay indoors and wear face masks. These warnings were given when it had been decided that water should be used to reduce the fire and before the effects of it could be determined. Water was turned on at 8.55 a.m. on 11th October, and later that morning, when it became apparent that the situation was under control, the Chief Constable was told that no emergency would, in fact, arise.

Mr. F. Anderson: asked the Prime Minister if he has yet decided whether he will publish the Report of Sir Alexander Fleck on the Windscale accident of 10th October; and when the Report is likely to be ready.

The Prime Minister: The studies by Sir Alexander Fleck's three Committees are being pursued with all possible speed and the Committees have made good progress. The Organisation Committee hopes to report to me before the Christmas Recess and the Health and Safety Committee at the beginning of January. The Report of the Technical Evaluation Committee will necessarily take a little longer. Until the Reports are ready it would be premature to take any view on publication.

Mr. Anderson: Will the Reports from Sir Alexander Fleck take into account the public relations side, which was sadly lacking in the case of the incident of 10th October?

The Prime Minister: Without accepting the statement in the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question. I should think that all that would come under the Organisation and Health and Safety Committees.

Mr. Gaitskell: Could the Prime Minister explain the scope of the terms of reference and Report of the Organisation Committee?

The Prime Minister: After discussion with Sir Alexander, I think he felt that there were three sets of problems in which he could usefully help. With regard to what I might call the whole organisation, that was a matter in which he had great experience, and he could report whether the whole structure of the system needed alteration or tightening up. That was not really a matter which required great technical knowledge of the atomic field. With regard to the Health and Safety Committee and so forth, there he would have the assistance of the Medical Research Council and others. With regard to the Technical Evaluation Committee, he had to rely largely upon the evidence of almost the only experts who are in one way or another employed or giving their services to the Atomic Energy Authority, and there, where he had not the same personal knowledge of the subject, although very good scientific experience, it would necessarily take him a little longer to reach his decisions.

N.A.T.O. (NUCLEAR WEAPONS)

Mr. Zilliacus: asked the Prime Minister whether, in the discussions in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation


Conference on nuclear weapons as a deterrent against war, Her Majesty's Government will draw attention to the declaration by Field Marshal Lord Montgomery, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, on 21st October, 1954, to the effect that, at any moment, either side, in trying to win the cold war, might, without meaning to, start a world war that neither side wanted.

The Prime Minister: These observations made by Field Marshal Lord Montgomery in 1954 have, I feel sure, been noted by all concerned.

Mr. Zilliacus: Does not the Prime Minister agree that these observations knock the bottom out of the Government's contention that piling up nuclear weapons can possibly deter war? Do we not have it now on the authority of the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of N.A.T.O., Field-Marshal Lord Montgomery, that the more nuclear weapons are piled up on each side the greater is the danger of war breaking out by accident? Will the Prime Minister draw the attention of the N.A.T.O. Powers to this disquieting fact and urge them to address themselves, before proceeding any further on this primrose path, to the question of how to make peace?

The Prime Minister: I should not have thought that that was the deduction to be drawn from the Field-Marshal's statement. What he has said, and what is, alas, true, is that there is always a danger—it is the real danger perhaps—that people, if there is a cold war and a state of high tension, may also be drawn into something which they do not intend. That is, of course, the danger. But what is the alternative—to leave the free world undefended?

Mr. Zilliacus: asked the Prime Minister what agreement he made with President Eisenhower on the subject of the right of commanders of United States ballistic weapon and bomber bases in this country to act in conformity with the United States Government's policy of leaving it to their commanders to take the immediate decision for instant retaliation in case of attack on North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces anywhere in the world.

The Prime Minister: None, Sir.
As regards the American bomber bases in Britain, as the hon. Gentleman is aware, the United States Government have given a firm undertaking that these bases will not be used for military operations except in agreement with the British Government.
There are no United States ballistic weapon forces stationed in this country.

Mr. Zilliacus: Is the Prime Minister aware that on 20th November. Mr. Dulles announced that it was now United States policy to instruct U.S. commanders to resort to retaliatory action instantly on their own immediate decision? Does the agreement with the British Government cover the use of so-called tactical atomic weapons and conventional weapons, or is it confined exclusively to the so-called hydrogen bombs?

The Prime Minister: The agreement made by Mr. Attlee and confirmed afterwards by my right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill)—first in 1948 and then in 1952—makes it absolutely clear that no bombers or American aircraft based in this country can be used without the joint decision of the two Governments.

Mr. Gaitskell: Will the Prime Minister confirm that that also applies to those aircraft which are in the air and bombed up and which, we hear, are flying around all ready to act?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. Of course, there is no distinction at all as to whether an aircraft is sitting on the airfield ready to take off, or on patrol or training duties in the air.

Mr. A. Henderson: Will the Prime Minister make it clear that neither United States Air Force bombers nor Royal Air Force bombers while engaged in routine training flights over this country are loaded with nuclear or other bombs?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. I have made rather close inquiries into the situation which I understand to be the same now as it has always been. There has been no change in practice since 1948. In training and patrolling weapons must be carried partly for the use of training in loading and so forth, which is part of training, and also in patrolling; but they are carried in a form which is technically


called—whether the weapons are H.E., atomic, or of any other character—"not armed." I am told that that is an expression to cover the fact that a weapon cannot be made active without considerable technical adjustments. Some of the older ones among us would have a better picture if I said "not fused". It is in that state that these weapons are used for experiment and training.

Mr. Gaitskell: Can the Prime Minister give an assurance that there is no danger of a nuclear explosion resulting if one of these aircraft were to crash?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. I am told that there is no danger of an explosion. I think that American Forces make it a practice to keep always ready, when one of these patrols is in the air from one of our bases, special tanker machines which can go up and help to refuel when it is a matter of not being able to land in England so that the aircraft can fly back to their bases in America.

Mr. Zilliacus: asked the Prime Minister what agreement he reached with President Eisenhower relating to the application of graduated deterrents in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation defence, with particular reference to the use of atomic weapons up to two-and-a-half times the power of the Hiroshima bomb on the immediate decision of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation or United States commanders, and to obtaining preliminary approval at political level only before using nuclear arms of more than two-and-a-half times Hiroshima strength; and whether he will make a statement.

The Prime Minister: None, Sir.

Mr. Zilliacus: Is the Prime Minister aware that N.A.T.O. generals disclosed to the Defence Committee of the N.A.T.O. Parliamentary Conference that N.A.T.O. commanders are now being authorised to use nuclear weapons up to two-and-a-half times the power of the Hiroshima bomb on their own immediate decision, with no obligation to secure prior approval from any political authority? Will he say why the Government have assented to that proposition, or will he give an assurance that the Government will oppose this monstrous and appalling policy even to the extent, if necessary, of ceding from N.A.T.O.?

Mr. Walter Elliot: Before my right hon. Friend answers that question, will he take it from me that that was not said and that, as the meeting took place behind closed doors and no communiqué was published, the hon. Member has no reason whatever for making allegations such as he has just made?

The Prime Minister: I was about to observe that I have no report of the speech which has been mentioned and of which, I understand, no report was issued. I can only restate the facts as they are. There is no misunderstanding about American bombers based in this country. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition will confirm that. We had an agreement in 1948, the terms of that agreement being restated and reconfirmed in 1952. They remain. No operational use can be made without the agreement of the two Governments. The forces which may be allocated to the Supreme Commander in Europe for N.A.T.O. are the responsibility of the Governments who are signatories of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Beswick.

Mr. Zilliacus: On a point of order. I have not yet had my supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Zilliacus.

Mr. Zilliacus: Thank you, Sir. Is the Prime Minister prepared to state definitely that no such instructions are being given to N.A.T.O. commanders? After all, this country is a member of the N.A.T.O. Council and Field-Marshal Lord Montgomery is Deputy Commander-in-Chief of N.A.T.O. We have a share of the responsibility. Has the Prime Minister seen an article by my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) in the Sunday Pictorial stating quite definitely—he was present at these meetings—that the question of the right of commanders to use these dreadful weapons on their own initiative was creating consternation among the smaller N.A.T.O. Powers?

The Prime Minister: As has been pointed out, this Question was based on what is alleged to be a speech of which an hon. Member and one of my right hon. Friends have given very different accounts. I do not have a copy of a report of what was said. I only know


what the facts are. They are that American bombers based in this country are subject to a joint agreement of the two Governments and that the use of any weapons or any forces is subject to the control of the fifteen Governments who form the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

Mr. Beswick: The Prime Minister keeps referring to the political agreement of 1948 which was confirmed in 1952. Is not he aware, however, that the whole root of the concern in this matter lies in the fact that a political arrangement which might have been acceptable in the leisurely days of the piston-engined bomber is no longer applicable to modern aircraft capable of delivering a modern weapon? As we have these new weapons, does not the Prime Minister think that it would be wise to negotiate a fresh political arrangement?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Member appears to be referring to a different matter from that referred to by his hon. Friend. He is referring to the agreement as regards the American bombers based in this country. I should have thought that the greater force and power of the weapons made it all the more important that the agreement should remain and that these weapons should be used only on the joint approval of both Governments.

Oral Answers to Questions — LOCAL GOVERNMENT, GREATER LONDON (ROYAL COMMISSION)

Mrs. Butler: asked the Prime Minister what representations from the local authorities affected were taken into consideration in deciding the terms of reference of the Royal Commission on the reform of London Local Government.

The Prime Minister: There were prior consultations as regards both the area and the functions to be covered. I was not able to accept suggestions that the scope should be widened so as to cover matters outside the normal field of local government. The draft terms of reference were, however, amended so as to leave the administration of water supply for separate consideration, and to make it clear that the Commission would be free to recommend any or no change for all or any part of the review area.

Mrs. Butler: Is the Prime Minister aware of representations by local authorities in the Metropolitan Police District that there should be greater financial accountability of the police to local authorities, in view of the heavy financial calls which are made on the authorities by the police precept? Can he make clear whether that financial aspect may be considered by the Royal Commission? If not, will he find an early opportunity of considering the matter?

The Prime Minister: It is perfectly true that a number of authorities, including that in the hon. Lady's constituency, wished that the police functions should be considered in the review, but for the bulk of the area police is not a local authority function. Other authorities wanted other things—transport and so forth—to be included, but that was not thought right, and I think that that was a wise decision. To extend the scope of the Commission beyond the organisation of local government would be a very big undertaking.

Oral Answers to Questions — SUMMIT TALKS (MR. KHRUSHCHEV'S PROPOSAL)

Mr. Swingler: asked the Prime Minister what further consideration he has given to responding to Mr. Khrushchev's suggestion of renewed summit talks.

The Prime Minister: I would refer the hon. Gentleman to the Answer I gave on this subject to the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) on 12th November.

Mr. Swingler: Will the Prime Minister explain under what conditions he might be prepared to respond to such an invitation? Will he at any rate try to organise a meeting of the Foreign Secretaries of the big Powers for the purpose of studying the conditions under which summit talks might be held with some fruitful result, in a supreme effort to relieve international tension?

The Prime Minister: There is nothing which we have not tried to do to help to reduce tension and bring about a greater sense of peace and security in the world, but it was explained, both in debate and in Question and Answer, that the arrangement for and the timing of


such meetings are very important. That has certainly been my experience, having attended two with not very satisfactory results. That is a good thing to keep in mind.

Mr. Gaitskell: In any case, is it not advisable that the Western countries should first reach agreement among themselves on some of these issues before starting to negotiate with Mr. Khrushchev?

The Prime Minister: That is a point which I had in mind. I hope that we shall reach some greater measure of—I will not say "agreement", because these problems are very difficult—facing the new form of these problems, perhaps in the meetings in Paris next month.

UNITED KINGDOM AND FRANCE (PRIME MINISTERS' DISCUSSIONS)

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:

Mr. EMRYS HUGHES: To ask the Prime Minister what subjects he discussed with the French Prime Minister at the Paris meeting.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I will answer Question No. 55.
The hon. Gentleman will have studied the communique which was published on Tuesday, 26th November. The main topics which my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary and I discussed with the French Prime Minister were the situation in North Africa, including the supply of arms to Tunisia, the forthcoming meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, and the European Free Trade Area.
On the position in Algeria, we found Monsieur Gaillard determined to ask for the passage of the loi cadre and, as the hon. Gentleman knows, the debate on this important measure is in progress in Paris. We believe that a solution for the Algerian problem must be found and that responsibility for this must rest with France. The Foreign Secretary and I were glad to reaffirm our belief that France should continue to discharge her special responsibilities in North Africa.
We had a very full discussion of the question of arms for Tunisia and agreed

to work out together arrangements designed to avoid the recurrence of difficulties such as those which have recently occurred. We shall continue to consult with the French Government on this subject.
I was able to give Monsieur Gaillard an account of my recent meeting with President Eisenhower and to reach agreement on the broad objectives for the forthcoming North Atlantic Treaty Organisation meeting which we hope will still take place at heads of Government level, in spite of the illness of President Eisenhower which we all. I know, so deeply regret.

Mr. Hughes: Will the Prime Minister explain why he was met by demonstrators carrying placards, "To the gallows with Macmillan"? Does he not think that this was going rather too far? Can he say whether any definite arrangement was reached to stop shipments of arms to Tunisia?

The Prime Minister: I was unfortunate in never seeing any crowds in the streets, or a demonstration of any sort. They can, perhaps, be called "slightly exaggerated by reports".
I have described precisely what talks we had and the conclusions which we came to, which were set out in the communiqué. While the British Government could not give an absolute undertaking that they would not give arms to Tunisia we recognised the need of the Government of Tunisia to acquire arms for internal security and legitimate self-defence. At the same time, we expressed the hope that such arms would normally be supplied to the point that was reasonable by France as in the past and we confirmed that no further arms would be sent from the United Kingdom to Tunisia without continued consultation with the French Government. But I did not give, and I did not feel it right to give, any absolute guarantee on our part.

Mr. Gaitskell: On behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends, we would wish to associate ourselves with the Prime Minister's reference to President Eisenhower and the hopes for his speedy recovery.
Generally speaking, I think that we would agree with the line taken by the Prime Minister and support his refusal


to give any firm and definite undertaking not to supply arms in future should the occasion make it necessary. At the same time, we also agree that it would be desirable to consult with the French Government first.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: While we are much obliged to my right hon. Friend for his statement, and wish the Tunisian people well, may I ask whether every opportunity will be taken of reaffirming the vital importance to Britain, the Commonwealth and Europe of Britain's alliance with France? Did my right hon. Friend make known in Paris that there are many in this House and many more outside it who remember with deep gratitude the nation and the soldiers who stood staunchly at our side, not for the first time, a year ago?

The Prime Minister: I think that the phrase in the communiqué describes—I hope, correctly—the general feeling of the House:
In a spirit of solidarity between their two countries both Prime Ministers expressed their conviction that France should continue to discharge her special responsibilities in North Africa, where she traditionally possesses a pre-eminent position and makes an indispensable contribution to the common defence of the free world.
On the more general question, while problems and difficulties may arise between Governments, especially, perhaps, in the circumstances of the last difficulty, with a French Government not being in office during a major part of the time and the present Government having only recently come into office, I am sure that we want to make the link and the strength of the old Anglo-French alliance the greatest we can. It has stood for fifty years through bad times and through good and I trust that it will stand for many generations to come.

Mr. Grimond: While I do not dissent from what the Prime Minister has said, does this incident not show the impossibility of any European nation treating its relationships with the Arab nations or with ex-colonial peoples in the area of the Mediterranean or Near East as exclusively its own affairs? Is it not important that we should impress upon N.A.T.O. that there should be a common policy in areas like Algeria and Cyprus, that it is not an exclusively French or British

problem and, above all, that we should put to the Russians that we cannot afford an arms race in the area and that disarmament, and not rearmament, is the right solution?

The Prime Minister: These problems are very easy to pose. They are not quite so easy to solve. I think that the result of our work in Paris is certain to bring the two Governments much closer together and more determined than ever to try to solve their problems in co-operation.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Gaitskell: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he will state the business for next week?

The Secretary of State for the Home Department and Lord Privy Seal (Mr. R. A. Butler): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY, 2ND DECEMBER—Second Reading of the Import Duties Bill.
Committee stage of the necessary Money Resolution.
Committee stage of the Isle of Man Bill.
Consideration of the Motion to approve the Registration of Restrictive Trading Agreements Order.
TUESDAY, 3RD DECEMBER—Motion to approve the Draft Army Act, 1955 (Continuation) Order, 1957, which it is hoped to obtain by about 8 o'clock.
Afterwards, a similar Motion relating to the Draft Air Force Act, 1955 (Continuation) Order, 1957.
WEDNESDAY, 4TH DECEMBER—Motion for an Address seeking the opinion of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council on the interpretation of the Parliamentary Privilege Act, 1770, in accordance with the recommendation contained in the Fifth Report from the Committee of Privileges.
Consideration of the Reports from the Select Committee on Procedure.
There will then be an opportunity to debate the methods by which Private Bills are objected to.
THURSDAY, 5TH DECEMBER—Second Reading of the Post Office and Telegraph (Money) Bill.
Committee stage of the New Towns Bill.
Consideration of the Motion relating to the Government of India (Family Pension Funds) (Amendment) Order.
FRIDAY, 6TH DECEMBER—Consideration of Private Members' Bills.
It may be for the convenience of the House to know that the Crown Estates Commissioners are issuing their statement this evening on the subject of the future of the Regent's Park houses. Hon. Members may like to know that copies of the statement will be available in the Vote Office at 5 o'clock this afternoon.

Mr. Gaitskell: On Thurday's business, would not the Leader of the House agree that, normally, a full day's debate is allowed for the Second Reading of a Post Office and Telegraph (Money) Bill? That being so, will the Government consider deferring the Committee stage of the New Towns Bill until a little later?
Secondly, may I ask whether the Leader of the House will find time for a debate on foreign affairs at an early date?

Mr. Butler: On previous occasions we have taken similar Bills relating to the Post Office on a Friday, which is a half-day, so that I do not think it unreasonable to see how we get on on Thursday next I should like to leave the business as it stands so that we may see how we get on. I hope that we can make some progress, also, with the New Towns Bill.
I think that we should discuss the second request of the right hon. Gentleman through the usual channels.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: May I reinforce the plea of the Leader of the Opposition for a full day's debate on foreign affairs? Is my right hon. Friend aware that in the short foreign affairs debate on 8th November, no answer at all was returned by the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs to queries raised by my hon. Friends about British sovereignty and independence in the Middle East and elsewhere? Will the right hon. Gentleman guarantee that a debate will be held in this House before the forthcoming N.A.T.O. meeting, at which irrevocable

decisions may be taken, so that the new policy of interdependence may be fully explained and discussed in the House?

Mr. Butler: We will certainly discuss with the Opposition the possibility of a foreign affairs debate, and I shall be very glad to discuss it with the noble Lord, if he so desires. I realise the importance of the subject. I must also point out that there were opportunities during the debate on the Address for these matters to be raised and that, in fact, a certain opportunity was taken to raise some aspects of foreign police.

Mr. Anthony Greenwood: We are grateful to the Lord Privy Seal for informing us that the Crown Commissioners are presenting their statement on the Nash Houses today. Can he say when he expects to be able to announce Government policy, and, when an announcement is made, will there be an opportunity to discuss it in the House if necessary?

Mr. Butler: Hon. Members had better read the statement. If they obtain great satisfaction from it, there may be no necessity to have a debate. I think it quite likely that they may find it very agreeable to their point of view. I certainly think that they should read it first, and then we can discuss the possibility of a further statement by the Government and a debate.

Mr. Nicholson: On Wednesday, will the whole sphere of the Report of the Committee of Privileges be under review, or will the debate he limited?

Mr. Butler: We shall be tabling a Motion tonight and my hon. Friend will then be able to see that the scope is, in fact, restricted to the point about referring this matter to the Judicial Committee. That does not mean that ingenious people may not he able to raise wider issues. But, on the whole, I think it would be in the interests of the House if the wider question in the first part of the Report were retained until we have the views of the Judicial Committee. I consider that the two things hang together. But when my hon. Friend sees the Motion which will be tabled tonight, he will be able to get a clear idea of how far he can go.

Mr. Woodburn: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what will be the form of the debate on the Select Committee on Procedure? Am I right in assuming that it will be an exploratory debate, to ascertain the views of the House, and that the Government are not proposing to table any definite proposals?

Mr. Butler: That is so, because we wish to obtain the opinions of hon. Members. While I shall probably express the attitude of the Government on these matters, without which hon. Members would not be able to make up their minds, it will not be the final and concluding debate on the subject. We shall be glad to obtain the reactions of hon. Members.

Mr. Ede: Referring to the first part of Wednesday's business, do I understand that there will not be a Motion that the Report of the Committee of Privileges be taken into consideration?

Mr. Butler: The Motion will relate simply to the one point of referring the point of law to the Judicial Committee and, therefore, it will be limited to that extent.

Mr. C. R. Hobson: Is the Lord Privy Seal aware that the Post Office Bill is far wider in scope than the usual bi-annual Bill, inasmuch as the whole of the Post Office's accounting system has been changed? Will the right hon. Gentleman again consider giving a whole day to the debate? There is the further point that we have Money Orders laid before the House regarding Post Office charges which there has been no opportunity to debate whatsoever.

Mr. Butler: I realise that the form of accounting has been changed. We do not want to restrict the discussion and that is why I used the simple English expression that we should "see how we get on." If we do not get on very fast, we shall just have to listen to what hon. Members have to say.

Mr. S. Silverman: Referring once again to the projected discussion of the Report on the Committee of Privileges, does not the Leader of the House consider that the procedure proposed by the Government is most unusual, in that the Report contains three recommendations, one being that the matter was a proceeding in Parliament

and the second and important recommendation that what happend in relation to it was, in fact, a breach of Privilege?
Would it not be much more in accordance with the practice of the House, and the precedents in such matters, and for the convenience of debate, if the whole Report were put in issue in the debate at one time, even though it were accompanied by some such Motion as the right hon. Gentleman proposes to put down?

Mr. Butler: No, Sir. I think that if the hon. Member will return to the Fifth Report of the Committee of Privileges, he will see that the Committee asks, as a result of this procedure—namely, the reference to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council—that the matter be referred back to the Committee of Privileges, because I think it will influence the view of the Committee of Privileges as to what is the conclusion of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Therefore, I think it better to refer this point of law first and have a general debate later.

NAVAL DOCKYARD, HONG KONG (CLOSING)

The Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith): With permission. Mr. Speaker, I will make a statement.
Her Majesty's Government have decided to close the naval dockyard in Hong Kong. The rundown, which will extend over two years, is expected to end by 30th November, 1959. This decision has been taken with very real regret in view of the long association of the dockyard with Hong Kong and the loss of jobs for many employees which must inevitably result from the closure. It has been necessitated by the current reorganisation of naval forces and their shore support throughout the world in the light of Government policy outlined in the Defence White Paper. The future requirements of Her Majesty's ships in the Far East will no longer justify the maintenance of a full-scale dockyard in Hong Kong.
The closure of the dockyard will not mean the disappearance of Her Majesty's ships from Hong Kong and Far Eastern waters. A number of naval vessels which will be based upon Hong Kong will continue to discharge the responsibilities of


Her Majesty's Government for the protection of British shipping and the security of the Colony. A small naval base from which ships can be serviced and operated will be retained in Hong Kong island. In addition, other ships of the Fleet in the Far East will continue to visit Hong Kong from time to time.

Mr. Bottomley: For the moment I will confine my questioning to the naval implications of the Minister's statement. Can the hon. Gentleman say whether the saving which will arise from the closing of the dockyard in Hong Kong are in addition to those already made known in the published White Paper?
Secondly, is he aware that there is a great deal of uncertainty in the home dockyards, with the result that many valuable employees are leaving the Service? Can the hon. Gentleman give an assurance that there will be reasonable stability in the home dockyards in the future?

Mr. Galbraith: We expect to save about Eli million a year as a result of closing the dockyard at Hong Kong. I am sorry that I have nothing further to add at the moment about the other dockyards.

Mr. C. R. Hobson: Will the Joint Industrial Council be notified of the closure? Is there a possibility of people who have gone out there to repair ships being made redundant, or will they be absorbed into the remaining dockyards; and are negotiations likely to take place with the unions on this matter?

Mr. Galbraith: There is no question of the base being closed; it is only the dockyard that is being closed. The development of trade union relations in Hong Kong is still in a somewhat elementary stage and only one small union has been formally recognised. If the hon. Gentleman is interested in the British personnel, I can say that they will, of course, be brought back to this country.

Mr. S. O. Davies: As there is admittedly very substantial unemployment in Hong Kong at present, can the hon. Member give an assurance as to the possibility of finding other employment for those who will be displaced by the closing down of the dockyard?

Mr. Galbraith: The Admiralty is very well aware of this problem and so are the Government of Hong Kong. A committee has been set up representing employers, the Admiralty and the local Government to try to arrange that these men will get new jobs.

Mr. Bottomley: Cannot the hon. Member give an assurance that, in fact, there will be no closing of the home dockyards? This uncertainty is causing great trouble among the men employed there.

Mr. Galbraith: That is another question.

Mr. J. Griffiths: The hon. Member said that a committee has been set up in Hong Kong to consider alternative employment. Do not Her Majesty's Government recognise that they have a greater responsibility than that? We have permitted many thousands of people to go to Hong Kong, where there is serious unemployment, and this will add to it. Are Her Majesty's Government prepared to support financially, and in other ways, the establishment of alternative industries in Hong Kong after the closing of the dockyard?

Mr. Galbraith: That is a question for my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary. We are doing everything we can, in consultation with the Government of Hong Kong, to minimise the difficulties.

BILL PRESENTED

LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND MISCELLANEOUS FINANCIAL PROVISIONS (SCOTLAND)

Bill to make new provision for grants out of the Exchequer to local authorities in Scotland and otherwise to amend the law of Scotland relating to local government finance: to abolish the Education (Scotland) Fund; to amend the law of Scotland relating to the valuation for rating of industrial and freight transport lands and heritages and premises of Gas Boards, and to the sittings of valuation appeal committees to extend the power of trustees under the Trusts (Scotland) Act, 1921, to lend money to local authorities; to provide for increase of the fees payable in Scotland under certain enactments relating to marriage and to registration of births, deaths and marriages; and for


purposes connected with the matters aforesaid, presented by Mr. John Maclay; supported by the Lord Advocate, The Solicitor General for Scotland, Mr. J. Nixon Browne, and Mr. Niall Macpherson; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Monday next and to be printed. [Bill 41.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Proceedings of the Committee on New Towns [Money] and on the Public Works Loans Bill exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House).—[The Prime Minister.]

THE EARL OF BALFOUR (MONUMENT)

3.54 p.m.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): I beg to move,
That this House will, upon Tuesday next, resolve itself into a Committee to consider an humble Address to Her Majesty, praying that Her Majesty will give directions that a Monument be erected within the precincts of the Palace of Westminster at the public charge to the memory of the late Right Honourable The Earl of Balfour, K.G., O.M., with an inscription expressive of the high sense entertained by this House of the eminent services rendered by him to the Country and to the Commonwealth and Empire in Parliament, and in great Offices of State.
The House has rightly established for itself a rule that a Motion of this character should not be introduced until ten years after the death of the statesman for whom the memorial is proposed. My right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill), in referring to this general agreement two years ago, made this observation:
Ten years is long enough to allow partisan passions, whether of hatred or of enthusiasm, to cool, and not too long to quench the testimony of contemporary witnesses."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th March, 1955; Vol. 539, c. 40.]
In fact, twenty-seven years have passed since the death of Lord Balfour. At the time, generous and eloquent tributes were paid to his memory by the Prime Minister of the day, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, by Mr. Baldwin and by Mr. Lloyd George.
Alas, there are very few of us who sit in the House at present, with one very notable exception, who can have full, first-hand personal knowledge of Lord Balfour's outstanding qualities. But I think there is no one who would not agree that in his case there can never have been any need for animosity to cool, and there are still, fortunately, some of us who have a lively recollection of his greatness, both of intellect and character.
The initiative for this Motion comes really from the whole House, and is made to the whole House. It was a recommendation of the all-party Committee which was set up last Session to consider the arrangements for a memorial to David Lloyd George. I think that we are


all grateful to the Committee for giving us an opportunity to support this tribute today.
The life of Arthur Balfour spread over a period of eighty-two years. He first became a Member of the House of Commons in 1874, at a time when the Irish problem was at its height, and Mr. Disraeli was Prime Minister. There have been many great changes in political parties and electorates since that time. I observe, for instance, in reading a volume of admirable biography by his devoted niece, that the last sentence of his first Election address ran as follows:
As far as time will permit before the Election, I hope to wait upon every elector and to explain personally my views on the political questions of the day.
I am afraid that with the size of modern electorates, even the most assiduous canvasser among us could hardly achieve this. And yet, with so much change, the essential character of the House of Commons remains; and, in spite of all his other activities and powers, it is primarily as a House of Commons man that we like to think of Arthur Balfour.
His achievements are part of our history and they covered every aspect of government, from the part he played in the formation of our educational system, to his labours in the creation of the League of Nations after the First World War. It is not part of my task today to speak of his achievement as a statesman, nor am I competent to do so. I would prefer to recall, as far as I am able, his qualities as a man and as a Member of this House.
Arthur Balfour will always be associated with three characteristics: his great qualities of mind, his personal charm and capacity for friendship, and, thirdly, his invincible courage. Very few of our statesmen can have had higher intellectual qualities. His mind was refined to a degree that might be almost thought a disadvantage in a politician. But he was able, even at the height of his political career, to turn his mind from the arduous work of politics to the pursuit of philosophical inquiry.
His "Foundations of Belief" and "A Defence of Philosophic Doubt" have placed him high in his own right as a scholar and a philosopher. He had an immense range of learning, and read vast quantities of books. He observed once

that he had never met the person whose intellectual gifts had been overloaded with learning. He added:
No doubt many learned people are dull, but not because they are learned. True dullness is seldom acquired, It is a natural grace, the manifestations of which, however magnified by education, remain in substance the same.
There are some still of the older Members of this House who will recall his charm and friendship. I remember, as a very young man, when I had the privilege of meeting him on one or two occasions, taking away a very vivid memory of his extraordinary courtesy. He could make every young man believe that it was his opinions that were worth seeking and his conversation the only one worth listening to. This was not a pose or mere politeness; it was because he was genuinely interested in people. Yet, though he enjoyed friendship and society, he was, I think, at heart a rather solitary man and it was difficult for most people to penetrate the deep recesses of his character.
Equally marked was his modesty. A fine example of this is the record of his career at the beginning of the First World War. He had, after all, been Prime Minister and Leader of the Conservative Party, and he might have thought himself entitled to an honourable period of retirement. When the first Coalition Government was formed, in 1915, he wrote to Mr. Asquith that he would serve if his services were desirable or useful, and he added, "I am quite indifferent as to what office I take."
Indeed, he was fortunate in this, as it were, Indian summer of his political life. It had seemed that his public career was over, but perhaps the most memorable of his work for his country was done in the second phase of his life. His deep human sympathies were always aroused by human suffering. He will always be remembered in connection with the Declaration which bears his name with regard to a home for the Jewish people in Palestine.
As to outward appearances, when Balfour first entered this House he was regarded as something of a dilettante among politicians. It was not thought that he had the fibre to make a great statesman. Yet, in 1887, he was, to the surprise of many people, appointed to the office of Chief Secretary for Ireland, at that time perhaps the toughest assignment


that could be given to any Minister. Balfour fulfilled it with a firmness and courage that was the wonder of all his contemporaries.
For many years, under the Administration of Lord Salisbury, he was Leader of this House, with all that that entailed when the Prime Minister was in another place. His devotion to the work of the House has rarely been surpassed and he always regarded himself as the servant of the House. It may be worth noting that it was during this period, when he was Leader of the House, that the present procedure by which the choice of the subject in Supply rests with the Opposition, came first into existence.
Perhaps I might be allowed to conclude with the last sentence of Mr. Lloyd George's most eloquent tribute in this House when Lord Balfour died. He said this, and I think they are wonderful words:
His countrymen will always think of him, to the ends of the earth, not only as one who attained high distinction in an honoured calling, but as one who in doing so conferred an added distinction on that calling itself."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th March, 1930; Vol. 236, c. 2171.]
No man could have a finer epitaph. In honouring Arthur Balfour we are honouring the whole parliamentary system which he served so long and so faithfully.

4.4 p.m.

Mr. Hugh Gaitskell: I rise to support the Motion moved in such eloquent terms by the Prime Minister
As the Prime Minister said, it is twenty-seven years since Lord Balfour died. Like most other hon. Members, I did not have the privilege of knowing him personally so shall speak only very briefly. We all wish to listen rather to those Members who did know him personally. The Motion is one that the House of Commons should pass, because we should not, and could not, decide such matters according to our party allegiance but according to our views of the life, character, achievements and public service of the statesman in question. Judged in this way, there can surely be no doubt about the merits of this Motion.
The Prime Minister has described Lord Balfour's career; I need not add more than a few words. Balfour was a Member of this House for nearly half a

century, leader of his party in the House of Commons for twenty years, leader of his party in the country for nine years, Leader of this House from 1891 to 1892 and then for ten years from 1895 to 1905. As we know, in addition to being Prime Minister, he held many of the high offices of State. He has been described, I think it was by Mr. Lloyd George, as
the last of the great statemen of the Victorian era."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th March, 1930; Vol. 236, c. 2167.]
Indeed that is so.
It is interesting to reflect that Balfour served under Disraeli and that he debated across the Table of the House with Mr. Gladstone, both from the Government side and from the Opposition side, and that he attended the Congress of Berlin in 1878 as private secretary to Lord Salisbury; while, of course, he was a great figure in the twentieth century as well, not only as Prime Minister and as Leader of the Opposition in the stormy years from 1906 to 1911, but later on, after he had given up his position as party leader; and most notably as Foreign Secretary during the First World War. Balfour was not only a great Parliamentarian, but a great humanist as well. It has been said that he was admired by philosophers because he was a statesman and was admired by statesmen because he was a philosopher.
The Prime Minister has quoted Mr. Lloyd George's tribute to Balfour. I would wish to add some words from that notable occasion, when Mr. Lloyd George described Balfour in this House as
a man of great and spotless renown."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th March, 1930; Vol. 236, c. 2171].
We do well to honour his memory in this way.

4.7 p.m.

Mr. Clement Davies: I had the honour of serving on the Committee which put forward the proposal which is contained in the Motion which has been proposed by the Prime Minister. As one who has been throughout a member of the party which was in Opposition to the policy of the party which Earl Balfour led, I am grateful for being allowed to say a few words in support of the Motion.
It may be that we, who are in opposition, are often better able to judge a man's character, appreciate his power and form a just estimate of his stature, than are others. Arthur Balfour served his country in this House and in the House of Peers for five and fifty years and throughout that long period he was an illustrious and outstanding leader whose views were held in respect even by those who profoundly disagreed with him.
Arthur Balfour's was a personality of rare distinction. He was a philosopher, a statesman and, in science, a keen searcher after further knowledge. One always admired his vast ability but, above all, we ever paid tribute to his high character. Throughout his long career he held an exceptional position in the intellectual, social and political life of his time.
I remember him as a master of debate, not fluent and often hesitant; but that was due to his desire to find the precise word to express accurately his thoughts. When he found it and gave it utterance one felt at once that it was exactly the right word. While we, who were opposed to him, fiercely fought him, we always admired his high courage and his imperturbable temper and, what is more.

his effective use of delicate irony. In all the great offices of State which he held he served this country and its people with selfless devotion.
As the Prime Minister has said, there is one people who will hold his memory in reverence for his Declaration, signed as Foreign Minister in November, 1917—the famous Balfour Note—which gave, for the first time in 2,000 years, a new hope to the Jewish people, and was the foundation of the State of Israel.
For his long, arduous and devoted services we shall always revere him. I am proud to be allowed to be associated with this proposal to show our profound admiration, our respect and our gratitude to Arthur Balfour.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved, nemine contradicente,
That this House will, upon Tuesday next, resolve itself into a Committee to consider an humble Address to Her Majesty, praying that Her Majesty will give directions that a Monument be erected within the precincts of the Palace of Westminster at the public charge to the memory of the late Right Honourable The Earl of Balfour, K.G., O.M., with an inscription expressive of the high sense entertained by this House of the eminent services rendered by him to the Country and to the Commonwealth and Empire in Parliament, and in great Offices of State.

Orders of the Day — NEW TOWNS BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

4.10 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. J. Nixon Browne): The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. J. Nixon Browne) rose—

Mr. Sydney Silverman: I apologise to the hon. Gentleman and will not keep him long, but I wanted to inquire, Mr. Speaker, whether it was your intention at some point in the proceedings—not necessarily at once—to call the Amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) and myself? The Amendment reads:
That this House, while fully accepting the principle of the New Towns Act, 1946, cannot consent to adding a further fifty million pounds to the existing aggregate of two hundred and fifty million pounds until satisfactory measures have been taken to bring new industries to the North-East Lancashire Development Area, and thus stop the wastage of social capital and the flow of population form that area.

Mr. Speaker: I have read the Amendment to which the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) refers, but I do not think it is sufficiently relevant to the Bill to be in order as an Amendment. If the hon. Member catches my eye and is called, he may speak on some aspects of it, but he must relate it to the Bill whose Second Reading is the Order of the Day.

Mr. J. N. Browne: I beg to move. That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The immediate purposes of the Bill are very straightforward and can be explained in few words. The occasion of its Second Reading does, however, provide an opportunity, as the House would wish, to put before the House a general account of how the money authorised by Parliament to be spent on new towns is being used.
This is the fourth Bill which has been put forward to raise the limit of advances which may be made from the Consolidated Fund to the new town development corporations in Great Britain to enable them to meet capital expenditure. The limit which was set in the original Act of 1946 at £50 million has already been raised to its present level of £250 million. The main proposal in Clause 1 of the

Bill now before the House is that the limit should be further raised to £300 million.
Commitments have already been undertaken for expenditure totalling about £225 million of the £250 million now available, and it is evident that by the end of the present financial year much of the remaining £25 million will have been committed, Now is therefore the right time for the Government to bring forward this proposal to raise the limit by a further £50 million. This £50 million should carry us on until about the middle of 1959. It is too early to predict whether the fifth New Towns Bill will be the last, but we are certainly nearing the end of our journey in England and Wales, though not yet in Scotland.
The second purpose in Clause 2 is to avoid some unnecessary printing. At present the annual accounts of the development corporations are presented to Parliament twice, once as part of the corporations' annual reports which are made to the Secretary of State and Minister of Housing and Local Government and laid by them before Parliament; and again as an appendix to the Report in which the Comptroller and Auditor-General lays before Parliament the Ministers' account of issues from the Consolidated Fund and the advances to the corporations. Both submissions are governed by the statutory requirements of Section 13 of the New Towns Act, 1946.
The Public Accounts Committee suggested this year that measures be taken to avoid this duplication, running to some 300 pages of print. Clause 2 of the Bill does so by relieving the Comptroller and Auditor General of his obligation to lay the accounts with his Report. The opportunity is being taken in subsection (1) of Clause 2 to require that the corporations' annual reports shall include their accounts; they always have done this, but it has not so far been a statutory obligation. There is no change in the respective accounting responsibilities; it is only the duplication of printing which will be saved. The Comptroller and Auditor General will, of course, still be sent copies of the corporations' accounts by the Ministers with their own account, as the 1946 Act requires.
Let me turn now to Clause 1 of the Bill and its main purpose. The figure of £300 million is, of course, a large sum is the


taxpayer securing value for his money? In asking the House to approve this Bill, I must, I think, satisfy hon. Members on that point. I will quote the fewest possible figures. If hon. Members want any figures that I have not given, my right hon. Friend will provide them when he winds up the debate. I know, too, that the House will understand if I deal rather more fully than would my right hon. Friend, if he were making this speech, with Scottish affairs—though, of course. I shall cover the whole ground.
I will not seek to analyse the corporations' accounts in detail, but I must give the House a broad picture of the financial position of the corporations. In England and Wales, up to 31st March, 1957, the total capital advances made was about £155 million—£16·7 million in Scotland—of which £1·8 million—£0·2 million in Scotland—had been repaid. Of the total capital expenditure, land and buildings accounted for £137 million—£15·6 million in Scotland—and sewerage, water and main roads for £13·5 million—£137,000 in Scotland; the balance has been spent on such items as furniture, plant and equipment.
Hon. Members will be aware, from the published accounts of the corporations, that there are two main accounts, a general revenue account and an ancillary services revenue account. Seven out of the twelve English and Welsh corporations made a surplus and the remaining five a loss on general revenue account in 1956–57; with an overall net surplus of approximately £36,000. On ancillary services revenue account nine of the twelve corporations showed losses which, where there was any profit on general revenue account, more than offset that profit. Of the remaining three, two—Welwyn Garden City and Hatfield—showed an overall profit as their surplus on general revenue was greater than their loss on ancillary services. The latest English new town, Corby, which shows a surplus on general revenue, is rather like Scottish new towns, in that it does not operate an ordinary ancillary services account. The overall loss for all twelve corporations, reckoning both accounts together, for the year was approximately £710,000. The accumulated deficits from previous years bring the overall accumulated deficit at 31st March, 1957, to £3·6 million.
It was inevitable from the start that the heavy expenditure required for roads and main services in advance of housing and other development, a policy essential if rapid development was to be carried out, would involve losses in the early years. The position should steadily improve. Seven corporations, as I have said, are making surpluses on general revenue account and this progress should continue.
The losses on sewerage are a heavy burden, but in some part at least these losses ought properly to be borne by the sewerage authorities and met from the district council rates. It is hoped that negotiations to transfer sewerage installations to the appropriate sewerage authorities may shortly be begun by the individual corporations. Given some such relief from this burden, and as the initial expenditure on services increasingly bears fruit with further housing and commercial development, the corporations should, in the end, be able to cover their expenditure on both accounts and thereafter begin to overtake the accumulated deficits.
In Scotland, the position is rather different. East Kilbride and Glenrothes are showing substantial losses on general revenue account; at Cumbernauld development is only now starting. The aggregate deficit for 1956–57 was over £300,000. There are two main reasons why the Scottish new towns show less satisfactory results on general revenue account than the English. Firstly, they have not progressed so far, and, secondly, the level of house rents in Scottish new towns has never been satisfactory. I will refer to rents later on.
The fact that new towns in Scotland are such substantial county ratepayers as compared with the rest of the county area has benefited their ancillary services expenditure perhaps more than has been the case in England and Wales. The development corporations have received excellent co-operation from the local authorities concerned who have borne a considerable proportion of the capital burden of providing main services such as water, sewerage and highways. There is, therefore, no substantial deficit on the corporation accounts for these services in Scotland.
That, briefly, is the financial situation of the development corporations. How are we to assess progress, and are we getting value for the money spent? The


first, and most obvious, criterion is, of course, the scale of physical development and the number of people for whom new houses in better surroundings have been provided. Taking as a whole the new towns in England and Wales, the halfway mark in terms of size has now been passed. Some of the towns, such as Crawley and Hemel Hempstead, are within three to four years of the point at which the corporations will cease to build houses. Others have further to go but the rate of growth, again taking the new towns as a whole, has probably passed its peak.
Over 55,000 dwellings in England and Wales had been completed at the end of September this year, 53,500 built for the corporations themselves and the remainder by private builders building for sale. This is a very big achievement, and a great social experiment, from which historians will learn much. It means that, in the last ten years, about 150,000 people have been established in the London new towns, almost all from greater London, and over 40,000 in the provincial new towns in England and Wales. In Scotland, we are approaching the 7,000 mark in terms of houses completed, 5,000 of these being in East Kilbride. We still have far to go. Even in East Kilbride it will be seven years at least before building approaches completion.
It was fundamental to the original conception that the new towns should he largely self-contained. I think they are. The four provincial new towns in England and Wales—Corby, Peterlee, Aycliffe and Cwmbran—and Glenrothes in Scotland are being built up on the basis of existing industry; our main anxiety on these is to secure some additional industry to provide a good variety of employment, particularly for women.
In the new towns round London, industry has been established to match the population—though there have been times when the supply of jobs has fallen short of the housing programme, and vice versa. Such difficulties are acute while they last, but they have always been overcome. There seems no way of avoiding them altogether, since a housing programme has to be planned a long way ahead and there is time for much to happen, including changes of mind on the

part of industrialists, by the time the houses are built. In East Kilbride, likewise, industry and housing have marched reasonably well in step, and there is every prospect of the same thing happening at Cumbernauld. These two new towns will play for Glasgow a rôle somewhat similar to that played for greater London by the London new towns.
One of the principal functions of East Kilbride and the primary purpose of Cumbernauld is to provide houses for overspill population from Glasgow. Glasgow's ultimate overspill is estimated at 300,000 people; building sites in the City are rapidly being exhausted, and after about two years' time Glasgow Corporation's building programme will be confined almost entirely to central redevelopment. Of all the houses completed at East Kilbride to date, about half have been let to families from Glasgow. The proportion of houses currently completed which are being let to Glaswegians is steadily increasing and rose from 51 per cent. in the six months ended March, 1956, to 69 per cent. in the three months ended June, 1957. Building has commenced at Cumbernauld where it is intended that some 12,000 of the 14,000 houses which are to be built will be let to Glasgow families. It is estimated that over the next few years East Kilbride and Cumbernauld will jointly provide about 2,000 houses annually for Glasgow's needs: and if a programme of 5,000 houses a year for Glaswegians is to be maintained, this will leave about 1,500 houses to be built each year on redeveloped sites in the City of Glasgow and 1,500 in overspill and town development schemes carried out by local receiving authorities.
As has been said on a number of occasions, a third new town for the relief of overspill is not ruled out, but Cumbernauld has only just started and town development schemes are still under discussion and we consider we should, at present, turn all our resources and energies towards making these a success.
I now turn to the vexed question of commuting. All those who work in the new towns do not actually live there; nor do all those who live in the new towns actually work there. I do not think that some commuting is objectionable in principle. No one would want to see the towns entirely self-contained if men are to seek to improve their position or to


acquire skills not catered for by their own town. But it is plainly undesirable in practice if this daily flow of workers in and out of the towns is carried to excess in any one town. I do not think this has happened. Much could be, and has been done by the careful selection of tenants and by influencing industry to establish itself where it is most needed.
I say, therefore, that the difficult job done by the Corporations in pursuance of their main task has been well done.
What is there to report about amenities? Are the towns "good places to live in", architecturally and socially? That is much more difficult to answer. The right answer—if there is one—varies so very much from town to town. Furthermore, what right hon. or hon. Gentleman can say with certainty what are the requisites of "a good place to live in"?
The Government have been criticised for not ensuring that corporations can spend money on the provision of amenities of one kind and another. So far as entertainment is concerned, I quite agree that the new towns are lacking in various forms of entertainment to which their citizens may formerly have been accustomed. But one must regard the provision of cinemas, dance halls and similar enterprises as a job for commercial people, who cannot always be expected to provide them in advance of an assured market. That market is gradually being firmly established. The lively growth of town centres is one clear indication of it, and I am confident that provision for entertainment will quickly follow.
Other forms of amenity are generally the business of local authorities or voluntary bodies rather than of the development corporations. But the corporations do assist in the provision of community centres and have been mainly responsible for some very fine buildings for community purposes. They are permitted to dispose of land very cheaply for various forms of local authority provision, such as playing fields. But there is obviously a long way to go, in these and other respects, before the new towns are equipped with meeting places and recreational facilities of all kinds which are comparable with those to be found elsewhere.
That must be so. The new towns are being created over a very short period of years. Indeed, the surprising thing to

me, on the visits I have made to them, is that they have come so close to what one would expect to find in a balanced and long-established town.
Both architecturally and otherwise, the new towns have attracted the interest and respect of authoritative visitors from nearly every country in the world. Expert and inexpert opinions differ strongly as to their architectural quality. I greatly admire much of what I have seen. Personally, I have been a little worried about such things as the maintenance cost if the towns are to be kept spick-and-span, about adequate garage facilities and unnecessary side roads.
No doubt hon. Members will have their own criticisms and praise to bestow. What is interesting—here I can speak only for Scotland—is the lively public interest shown in the architecture and planning of our New Towns as compared with the public acceptance, with less demur, of new building elsewhere, building that certainly does not match the quality of the New Town developments.
Now I will turn to the difficulties brought about by the present economic conditions. The last ten years have indeed been difficult throughout, but never more than at present.
The interest rates which corporations have to pay to the Exchequer necessarily affect the scale and planning of their own building programmes and all the corporations have been reviewing their commitments and deferring any expenditure which can be deferred. This is sensible. But some corporations—particularly Bracknell and Stevenage—are compelled to maintain a high rate of building by the rate of industrial expansion. Others, such as Cumbernauld and East Kilbride, have, as I have said, a very large part to play in the dispersal of industry and population from the City of Glasgow. Here we do not intend to abate our programme of maximum possible building even in the present climate of economic difficulty.

Mr. J. A. Sparks: Can the Minister say precisely how that is going to be done? We should all like to know.

Mr. Browne: We shall go on building to the maximum possible extent.

Mr. William Hamilton: Does that apply to Glenrothes, the new town in Fife?

Mr. Browne: We have slightly different responsibilities in Glenrothes from the ones we have in East Kilbride and Cumbernauld.
Much has been heard, in the recent debate on the Address and otherwise, about the high level of rents for new town houses. For the English new towns it has always been the established policy that, after allowing for subsidies, development corporations must charge enough rent to keep their housing accounts solvent. This was laid down by Lord Silkin when he started the towns, and all his succsssors have maintained it.
The result, in a time of rising costs and interest rates, has inevitably been that new town house rents are high by comparison with the rents charged by most local authorities. Local authorities have, in general, a good many pre-war houses, built at much less cost, and by pooling their rents they can let the post-war houses at rents substantially less than would be warranted by the cost, even allowing for the subsidies. New town corporations also pool their rents, but having virtually no pre-war houses derive materially less benefit.
The real question is whether the new town rents are too high. The fact is that tenants, appreciating the immense benefit to themselves and, in particular, to their children, from living in the new towns, are willing to pay these rents. The taxpayer is already contributing very large sums to the development of the new towns. In addition to bearing the present losses, to which I have already referred, he contributes a subsidy of £32 per annum in England and Wales, for every house the corporations build to let.
I do not think that it would be fair to ask the taxpayer to contribute still more, provided that the rents are within the capacity of the tenants to pay—as they clearly are.

Mr. E. G. Willis: What kind of standard is used to judge whether rents are within the compass of ordinary people?

Mr. Browne: The hon. Member would not disagree that the people of the new towns are prepared to pay the rents, and appear to be glad to do so.

Mr. G. R. Mitchison: Surely the hon. Member ought to deal

with the sort of comments which are made in the new town corporation reports. The Report for Cwmbran says that these conditions, that is to say, the high rates of interest and the rising costs of building,
make it difficult to build houses which can he let at rents within the means of the lower paid workers within the area.
The Report develops that point at some length and, with the other corporation reports, says that for this reason it cannot carry out its job.

Mr. Browne: I am advised that the English new towns have waiting lists for their houses, so there must be some people who are prepared to pay this level of rent.

Mr. George Lawson: To what extent are the new town waiting lists made up of lower-paid workers and to what extent by higher-paid workers?

Mr. Browne: I am afraid that I could not answer that question without notice, but I think that the Scottish new towns are achieving what we most want to see, namely, a balanced community. Secondly, I have not yet come to the question of Scottish new towns, which I shall now deal with.
In Scotland, the effect of the old system of rating which this Government can be proud to have done away with, or altered—has always made it impossible for the new towns to balance their housing accounts, even with the higher rate of contribution of £56 per house, which the development corporation receives as a start. There is, I am afraid, no early prospect of bringing the Scottish accounts into balance, certainly not before 1961, when the completion of revaluation should relieve the tenants of part of the disproportionately high rate burdens resting upon them at present.
On the other hand, net rents in Scottish new towns are admittedly low—a four-apartment house in East Kilbride has a net rent of 5s. a week—and this is a matter which is now under preliminary discussion with the corporations.

Mr. Thomas Fraser: What the Minister is saying will create a very false impression in East Kilbride and all over Scotland. Can he tell us what is the gross amount in rent and rates paid weekly by those same people?

Mr. Browne: I do not think I can say that without notice, but I think I am right—my right hon. Friend will tell the House if I am wrong—in saying that the gross amount compares very well indeed with the gross amount paid by people in the English new towns.

Mr. A. Woodburn: Is it not a condition that, generally speaking, especially in the case of houses built by the Scottish Special Housing Association, rents must be in accordance with the rents in the district? Is it not the case that in East Kilbride the rents are very much higher than outside in the County of Lanark?

Mr. Browne: Yes, that is the difficulty which we have to face, without question.
Finally, whether or not hon. Gentlemen opposite will agree with what I have said, I am sure that all hon. Members will join with me in thanking and congratulating the Chairmen, members, and all the staffs of the new town corporations for the magnificent work they have performed for the nation. I am sure also that the House and the corporations would wish me to add a word of appreciation of the splendid co-operation which the corporations have received from the local authorities.
I have tried to cover all the main points justifying the need for the Bill, the financial implications and difficulties, the effects of the present economic conditions, and the extent of the achievement in terms of building and the movement of population. I hope that in so doing I have convinced the House that the new towns are something of which this country can properly be proud and that the Bill should be given a Second Reading.

Mr. Mitchison: Will the hon. Gentleman make one point clear before he sits down? He will, I am sure, realise that it ought to be made clear, at the beginning of the debate and not at the end. At the beginning of his speech he said that we were nearing the end of our journey in England and Wales, not necessarily in Scotland. Then, in reference to Scotland, he said that a third new town is not ruled out. Does that mean that it is the intention of the Government to rule out any further new towns in England and Wales?

Mr. Browne: Yes, that is the intention of the Government. On this point, the Government feel that if any of the large towns in England and Wales think it necessary at this time to deal with their overspill problem by means of a new town, they should build one for themselves. In fact, the London County Council and Manchester Corporation have already made proposals for so doing. As the House knows, there is provision for a special subsidy for approved schemes of this kind in Section 3 (3,e) of the Housing Subsidies Act, 1956.

Mr. Sparks: The Minister has just spoken about local authorities in future having power to develop their own new towns, and he mentioned the London County Council. London is not actually confined to the area of the London County Council. What about authorities surrounding the boundary of the County of London whose housing problem is just as acute as that in any part of London? Are they to develop a new town to cater for their overspill?

Mr. Browne: I think that that is up to the town concerned, to consider doing so in just the same way.

4.43 p.m.

Mr. A. Woodburn: We all welcome the Bill which has been presented today, and I am quite sure that the Minister of Housing and Local Government is very pleased to appear, for once, in a rôle welcomed by hon. Members. In recent times, he has, I am afraid, been given a rather frosty reception upon many of his appearances, and we can congratulate him today on coming forward with one proposal which the House is willing to accept.

Mr. S. Silverman: I hope that my right hon. Friend will forgive me, but on this occasion I think it necessary to say, with my apologies to him for intervening in his speech, that he is going a little beyond the facts in suggesting that the Bill is welcomed by all hon. Members in the House. I am quite certain that in other circumstances it would be, but in existing circumstances all hon. Members representing constituencies within the North-East Lancashire Development Area will look on it as, at any rate, a little premature.

Mr. Woodburn: My hon. Friend, with his usual enthusiasm for having a whole loaf and rejecting the half loaf, is anticipating. I take it that what he wants is a little more loaf for his particular district.

Mr. Silverman: All we want is some of the loaf.

Mr. Woodburn: I did not say that we were completely satisfied with what has been put before us, and I share with my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) some regret that the Bill does not provide a bigger meal, and that the job has not progressed even more speedily in order to make bigger advances.
In introducing the Bill, the Minister spoke about £300 million as though it were an enormous sum of money being thrown down the well. I wish this Government, and all Governments, would get out of the habit of thinking, when they are building up this country, its wellbeing and its capital value, that that is a loss. It is an investment, and what greater investment could a country have than homes for its people and healthy people coming from them? There is no more profitable investment for any country. Therefore, if we looked upon these things as investments and not as expenditures, we should have a different approach to many of the problems.
On behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends, I join in the Minister's tribute to the chairmen and managers of the corporations. I should imagine that there is no more satisfying job in public service than the creation of these new towns. The work is really creative and those engaged upon it actually see the thing growing around them, witnessing the benefit derived from the efforts they have put in. The only regret they may have is the feeling that things are not going quickly enough and everything is not, perhaps, satisfactory at once. But these new towns are growing communities, and, in most cases, they are reasonably happy communities.
No social experiment in our recent history has been so successful as this experiment of building new towns. In twelve years, these new communities have already taken root and, as the Minister exemplified in his speech, they have taken root successfully, producing good citizens, and they are already building up

homes and communities of which this country can be reasonably proud.
Transplanting people is not easy. To take people from one town to another or from one part of the country to another causes a great deal of dislocation and, sometimes, a great deal of heartburning. We found in Scotland, when trying to shift the mining population from Lanarkshire to Clackmannanshire, that a great many people drift back. It says a good deal for the new towns that they have held so many of the people who have been shifted. Older people, like trees, are not easily transplanted; they usually have families which have become rooted in a district as well. The break-up of families makes for difficulty. Therefore, the greatest success comes when the people who are transplanted are young people beginning new families in the new areas.
One of the satisfactory aspects of the reports of all the corporations is that so many of the new towns are being established with young people. East Kilbride, for example, has 90 per cent. of its people under 40 years of age. That is a quite remarkable figure. Our problems in the way we treat old-age pensioners would be much simpler if 90 per cent. of our population consisted of those under 40. East Kilbride and other new towns with their younger populations are making a very fortunate start.
We would willingly support more money for more new towns. I would even go so far as to lend encouragement to my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne; if he can persuade the Minister to grant a new town, there will be no objection from anybody on this side.

Mr. Silverman: It really is rather a pity that this question should not be better understood. In the towns of Lancashire of which I am speaking, we are not looking for new towns. We have perfectly good towns. But the population is drifting away from them to conurbations in the South and the new towns my right hon. Friend is talking about. We are not asking for new towns; we are asking for new industries and the possibility of living in the towns that we have created already.

Mr. Woodburn: I am going to deliver only one speech. My hon. Friend has


managed two or three already. If he will permit me to finish mine, I shall perhaps be able to do so more tidily. Even now, I am not quite clear about what my hon. Friend is asking, but he is evidently getting in his propaganda very effectively, whatever it may convey to his constituents.
Glasgow presents a problem not only for Scotland, but for all Great Britain. London will be able to solve its problem fairly well, but in Glasgow the congestion is greater than in any other city in the United Kingdom. It is difficult for people to realise that 700,000 people are crammed into three square miles, according to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. McInnes)—400 to the acre. In one part there are 12,000 people living over 600 to the acre. Nearly 50 per cent. of the people in Glasgow live in either one or two-room apartments. There is no problem in Britain that compares with that, and, therefore, if we use that as an example for facing this problem of new towns with a little more hope than the Minister has given us in his suggestion to close the books very shortly, I think that we shall have a better appreciation of what is necessary.
There are 300,000 people to displace from the City of Glasgow. That is nearly as many as London has to displace from its enormous city. London is not suffering from the same congestion as Glasgow. Two new towns are very valuable, but even from the Minister's figures they will merely scratch the surface of this problem. The overspill arrangements made by the recent Bill will also only tinker with the problem.
I wish the Government would get down to the question of what will happen. It is not a question of what will happen in the next two years. Merely to transfer people from Glasgow to a town next door is simply shifting the problem, not solving it. To crush half the population of Scotland into the Clyde area is simply to make trouble for the future. It is no solution. We must think in broader terms than simply to relieve Glasgow of its surplus population. It is merely transferring the problem, not solving it.
We welcome the success of East Kilbride, Glenrothes and the already promising start Cumbernauld is making. We are pleased that industry is starting so soon

in Cumbernauld. Glenrothes, which, it first appeared, would not succeed in getting variety of industry, is now looking much more hopefully to the future. East Kilbride is already a thriving town. I feel satisfaction, having been in at the beginning of these new towns, that they `have developed so quickly and well. Should not the Government be encouraged by this success in good living to go on to extend the process? Should not the Government get down to the question of what will be the future of these towns and especially the future of the people coming from Glasgow?
The Minister made reference to amenities. I was very glad that he did, because I think that this is one of the main problems of the new towns in Scotland and England. In Harlow, Crawley, and other towns, there is a tendency for a great number of people to drift back to their old centres because they feel they are missing the things which made society and social life possible. There is a danger of not attaining complete success because of the lack of adequate amenities.
I know that cinemas, and such like, are supposed to be provided by private enterprise, but with the development of television this is becoming a much more risky business for cinemas, and they are threatening to close down all over the country. Therefore, there is a very little likelihood of private enterprise developing cinemas and other public entertainments in these new towns.
Where private enterprise breaks down—and it does not always succeed then public enterprise has to take its place. I hope that the Minister will not be averse to some sort of public enterprise and so make possible the kind of amenities that are required in these areas. I recollect being in church in one of the new towns where the religious services took place from an altar at one end of the hall and throughout the rest of the week the same hall—it was a Church hall—had a stage at the other end to be used for other purposes. In the Middle Ages the church was used for everything—markets and all sorts of public gatherings—and was not used only for divine services. I think in economy, especially at the beginning, the church itself might make some arrangements of this kind.
I note that some churches are now having cinema shows in connection with their religious services. There might be some common purpose for many of these buildings in the early stages until the town grows big enough to accommodate the lot. The importance of these social services was brought home to me during the war, because in East London, where the houses were blitzed and were to be rebuilt, the two places built first were the banks and "locals"; the "pubs" had to be built first. People want some place to meet socially and in these new towns it is necessary to provide that kind of social life.
I am happy to see from the reports that in East Kilbride there are already 50 cultural organisations which have developed spontaneously. In Harlow, there are 12 repertory companies. A great deal of activity is arising from the people themselves, which is most satisfactory. I am a great believer in self-help in such matters. Television has probably saved the situation and has prevented a great deal of drifting back which might have taken place, because it brings something into the home and prevents the feeling of loss of the old attractions.
The case for new towns is proved. We gladly give great credit to the pioneers and to the people who thought out this method of developing life in a more happy and congenial fashion. We cannot look back with any great happiness on the days when towns grew up like Topsy, especially in Lancashire and some of the towns in the North. New towns are growing up where children can go to school without crossing roads. Intelligent planning should convert the Government from their theory that there should not be any planning. Planning has been proved and it has succeeded. Unless we plan we will not get very far. New towns in Scotland are not in themselves enough. New towns should be used as part of a great comprehensive remaking of Scotland.
There are desirable places in Scotland where we could redistribute the population. There is a lovely place at Cromarty Firth, which we made a Development Area, where we could take a new town. Many people would like

to live there. English people flock to Scotland during the summer time. They realise that it is a beautiful place. They do not realise that the weather is sometimes better up there than in England in the winter time. In any case, it is a very desirable place to live. Is there any reason why the people of Scotland should be cluttered on the Clyde? There is no reason at all why a new town should not be built at Cromarty. Many people who came from that area may willingly go back from Glasgow and develop their own countryside.
We must break up this Clyde conglomeration of houses. There could be a site at Loch Ryan, where wonderful docks were built during the war and left almost desolate. Aberdeen is said to be one of the finest towns to live in in the United. Kingdom—the right size and all the facilities for good living. Around Aberdeen there is plenty of room for more development. We will welcome a new town if London wants to send some of its people to the North. We will be willing to provide land for a new town from England. That may sound curious, but Corby has been described as an English new town. I was under the impression that it was a new town from Scotland. There is no reason why we should not reciprocate and allow England to have a new town in the north of Scotland.
The Government should approach this question from the point of view of the location of industry and population. They should do it with vision. Scotland has been suffering from this grievance of a drift of population to the huge magnets of London and Birmingham. During our time in office, we stopped development on factories in these places. We induced them to go out into other parts of the country and that is what is necessary today.
If we establish growing points—places where populations and industry can grow—the problem would gradually solve itself. When a gardener plants his plants, he puts them in the right place and gives them a chance to establish themselves and they are then able to continue to grow. That is the way to cultivate our land and our population. The fear of war is the one thing that induces Governments to spend money without any other thoughts to hold them back. If vital projects were dispersed, industries could


come up among the Scottish and Welsh hills, where they would be perfectly safe from bombs or other disasters of that kind.
These matters are not all separate issues, but that is how they appear to be treated. They should be considered, in addition to town planning, as part of national planning. The siting of industry, the dispersal of the population and the planning of the community should all be considered as one great comprehensive object. That is what we call making a community and building a land fit for heroes to live in.

Orders of the Day — ROYAL ASSENT

5.1 p.m.

Message to attend the Lords Commissioners:

The House went:—and, having returned

Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to:

1. National Insurance (No. 2) Act, 1957.
2. Aberdeen Harbour Order Confirmation Act, 1957.

Orders of the Day — NEW TOWNS BILL

Question again proposed, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

5.13 p.m.

Mr. C. N. Thornton-Kemsley: As a nation, we are often inclined to belittle our own achievements and to denigrate our institutions. But there is not the slightest reason why we should do that in the case of the new towns or why any of us, on either side of the House, should feel anything but pride in an achievement which, politically at any rate, is a joint achievement. The New Towns Act was accepted by both parties, and the 15 new towns in Great Britain have been warmly approved in all quarters of the House.
I have had the opportunity on more than one occasion of meeting overseas visitors who have come to this country to study some of our new towns. I have always been struck by the comments they have made about them and by the approval they have shown of our initiative, even our genius, in constructing after

the war, in circumstances which were certainly difficult, this new type of organisation. Only last summer the distinguished American town planning expert and writer, Mr. Lewis Mumford, said that the building of the British new towns, as a political and economic achievement, was a miracle of the-age. That is putting it very high, but I am not really sure that it is putting it too high.
I suppose that the new towns have four distinctive features. First of all, there is in every new town a pretty fair indication that industrial development is keeping pace with the building of homes. They are not places for commuters, not places where people live but do not work and to which they have to go in the morning, undertaking difficult journeys as many of us do who work in London, and returning at night using, perhaps, uncomfortably and overcrowded public transport. In all the new towns, by and large, people live and work. London's eight new towns have already received some 120,000 people and have provided proportionate employment for people who would otherwise have added to the congestion in the Metropolis. Those who have visited them can be in no doubt that the new towns have proved themselves to be streamlined and highly efficient centres of industry.
Secondly, the new towns have observed the green belt principle. Adequate provisions have been made for healthy country living. Thirdly, there is the quite new conception of neighbourhood units with local shops and an imposing town centre and, I think, in the main an imaginative and a not unpleasing architectural treatment of the houses and their surroundings. Fourthly, there are the development corporations, corporations with an already high tradition of service and which in every case have pioneered wisely and administered economically so that they are already proving that new towns are in every sense of the word a profitable national investment.
For these reasons, over the past few months, I have been coming to the conclusion with great regret—I learned it today authoritatively from my hon. Friend—that the Government have set their faces against further new towns in England and Wales. I am very sorry to hear that. Can we solve the problem of urban congestion without more new towns? The number of persons to be


rehoused in England and Wales alone is of the order of 2 million. That means the construction over a period of years of something like 600,000 new houses. Yet the present and prospective rate of new housing in new towns and in town development schemes—indeed, in all schemes for taking the overspill from the great urban conurbations—is providing houses, and will provide houses, only at the rate of something like 15,000 a year. At that rate of progress it will take 40 years to catch up with the immense housing shortage with which we are faced at the present time.
I am sure we must all hope that town development schemes will be successful, yet almost everywhere these schemes are hanging fire. As the months, and even as the years, pass hopes of a substantial alleviation of the overspill problem by means of town development schemes begin to fade. The other alternative is high density development in the central areas, the building of high flats in already overcrowded cities.
In the past I have spoken in the House, as have other hon. Members, about the immense cost of high density development in central areas. Recently the British Research Station has found that average building costs per square foot of net usable floor space in six-storey flats is 58s. a square foot rising to 67s. a square foot in the case of blocks of eleven or twelve storeys. That has to be compared with the ordinary two-storeyed houses which in London can be built now at 38s. 6d. a square foot. So that the average excess cost of a high flat providing 850 sq.ft. of usable floor space over that of a house of the same size is over £1,000.
There are even more striking figures based on actual examples of development schemes at Aston in Birmingham which the Town and Country Planning Association submitted recently to the Minister of Housing and Local Government for critical examination and comment. These figures show that even if the capital costs of making new roads, of providing electricity, sewerage, and so on, are added, it is still cheaper for the taxpayer and the ratepayer together to build 10,000 houses in new towns than 10,000 high flats in central areas.
In view of the need for a far greater, a far more intensive and serious effort to rehouse the overspill from the congested areas, and in view of the proved success not only from the sociological point of view but from the financial point of view of the new towns, I have asked myself often why the Government I support are not more enthusiastic about providing more new towns. I have come to the conclusion the answer is that they are frightened of what I may call the agricultural objection.
As a farmer and as a landowner I yield place to no one in my desire to see the kind of farmland which is most necessary for the economy of our country retained in agricultural use—and I want to hear the economists telling us what kind of farmland that is. We have in this country at the moment a surplus of liquid milk, so I do not lose a great deal of sleep when I hear that so many dairy farms are threatened by urban expansion. I feel much more alarmed when I hear that market garden land is threatened, or that land good for beef production, or good land which is under arable cultivation, is being taken away from agriculture and being devoted to the development of housing.
We ought not, however, to lose sight of the fact that the increase of productivity per acre owing to mechanisation and increased scientific knowledge and know-how has made great advances in the past few years. I spent an evening in the Library two days ago looking up the statistics of agricultural production over the ten years from 1945 to 1955. No one will deny that those ten years were years of great building development to this country. It was during those ten years that the new towns took shape, that land was acquired compulsorily for the building of the new towns, that land was taken out of agricultural production and given over to building of various kinds.
Yet from the official figures, which are obtainable, which are there for anyone to see in the Library, which I could quote at length, it is clear that the area under crops and grass in Great Britain as a whole during those ten years remained almost static—that that acreage increased by 0·4 per cent. during that ten-year period. It is true that the area under rough grazings declined by about 2·3 per cent., but the area under crops and grass,


in spite of the building that went on, actually increased by a slight percentage. Moreover, during that time, during the ten years from 1945 to 1955, our head of cattle in Great Britain as a whole increased by 12 per cent., of sheep by 13 per cent. and of pigs by no less than 170 per cent.
These figures certainly suggest that wise agricultural policy and good farming combined should lessen the fear, which is felt by some, and which, I think, is founded upon inadequate information, that planned dispersal at reasonable standards of density is going to increase to the point of risk our dependence upon imported food.
As has been pointed out in the House today, there is no city in Great Britain which has a greater overspill problem than the City of Glasgow. It is greater by far even than the problem faced by London, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, any of the great conurbations south of the Border, and it has been immensely encouraging—to me, at any rate, believing as I do in new towns, wanting, as I do, to see more new towns in this country—that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland has announced the development of Cumbernauld as a new town in Scotland and that my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary in the House today has said that a third new town—I presume he must have meant a fourth new town in Scotland is not ruled out.
In conclusion, I do hope most sincerely that my good and right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government will follow that example.

5.27 p.m.

Mrs. Jean Mann: I feel very pleased to have caught your eye, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, and so to be able to recall that at one time when I was an honorary organiser of the Town and Country Planning Association I invited Mr. Speaker to come to Scotland to address a conference of ours on new towns. Of course, he was not Mr. Speaker at that time. He was Minister of Town and Country Planning. The great attraction of having him come to Scotland to speak on that subject was that he was able to speak the Gaelic, and we thought we should draw a large audience from the Highlands and Islands if we had a Minister of Town and Country Planning putting the case in Gaelic. Unfortunately,

he pointed out to me that he could not overstep the Secretary of State for Scotland. Ultimately, we had to get the Secretary of State for Scotland.
I am pleased at the remarks made here about the pioneers. I notice that the pioneers' names are nearly all tabulated in this memorandum of the Town and Country Planning Association. Many of them are in the Highlands. Some of them are in the House tonight. Mr. Speaker is certainly one of the vice-presidents.
When I look at the amount of money which has been spent and is still to be spent, I am reminded of the criticism directed at me by the Scottish newspapers when I urged that new towns should be built in Scotland. I actually urged that one should he built at East Kilbride. It was regarded as a fantastic proposal.
Even my own colleagues never ceased to attack this fantastic proposal, and one evening newspaper pointed out that it would cost "only" £30 million. It went on to say, "'Mann' wants but little here below." When we started on East Kilbride we had the utmost opposition from Glasgow Corporation, which opposed the Secretary of State at that time, but which today is most enthusiastic and, indeed, is urging the provision of more new towns.
I should like to emphasise a point which may have been forgotten in the past ten years. At one time Glasgow was attached and pledged to what was called the Bruce Plan, to build within its existing boundary and build upwards. I am very grateful that wiser counsel prevailed, but there was still some misconception of what constituted a new town. There were people who said that we would create just another dormitory suburb. That is not the purpose of new towns. A new town is a self-contained unit complete with industry and recreational and social facilities to provide a whole living.
I am afraid that in Scotland, at any rate, we are apt to stray from that idea. The success of our new towns must depend upon the industry that we provide within them. I must pay tribute to Sir Patrick Dolan, because I do not think that without him East Kilbride could have attracted the industry that it has attracted there. But we cannot always find people with Sir Patrick's driving force, and there is not the compulsion in legislation that would act as an incentive


to a driving force in the overcrowded city of Glasgow or even in the new towns.
I know that London's eight new towns have received about 120,000 people from greater London and that they will take 160,000 more. They have provided over 40,000 manufacturing jobs which otherwise would have contributed to the congestion in London. Have we in Scotland any figures which anywhere nearly approach these in the proportion of the number of people removed to the number of people for whom jobs have been provided? I am quite sure that we have fallen well behind the achievement of greater London in providing jobs.
We also require some amending legislation to enable us to entice factory development into our Scottish new towns. We ought to profit by London's experience and secure the closure of vacated factories. That is very important. There also ought to be limitation of office building and related measures to redistribute employment. When an industry moves out of Glasgow there is a temptation to fill up the vacated factory very rapidly. The same applies to offices.
I stress the great importance of providing jobs in the new towns. I know that the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland said that there would be a good deal of criss-cross traffic, but I hope that that will not always be the case. When Sir Ebenezer Howard's Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City were being established, only 25 per cent. of London people who were settled there worked there. The remaining 75 per cent. travelled elsewhere to work. But in a short time 75 per cent. were working inside the garden cities and only 25 per cent. were travelling.
At that time, I can remember a critic telling me that Welwyn and Letchworth were paying no dividends and no interest was being received by those who formed the company, whose profit was limited to 5 per cent. We were told that the position would never be reached where any profit over 5 per cent. would go back to the community, as laid down in the charter. The critics could not see even 2 per cent. being earned. Well, over 5 per cent. is being earned and the quarrel, if there be any, within the companies is whether all profit over 5 per cent. should go back to the community or whether

the companies should be enabled to amend their articles and redistribute the extra profit.
I agree with the hon. Member for North Angus (Mr. Thornton-Kemsley) who, like myself, has been identified with the Town and Country Planning Association for the past 20 years. We have both watched this development from the financial and industrial point of view and, most of all, from the viewpoint that inspired us all—the provision of a good living for the people, and we are convinced that it is certainly a success. I hope that Scotland will go on very soon to provide its fourth new town.

5.29 p.m.

Viscountess Davidson: I am very glad to have the opportunity of saying a few words in support of the Bill. I find that, unfortunately, even today few people know much about new towns or really take an interest in them unless they live in them or represent them or have something to do with them personally. I am afraid that that applies also to a large number of Members of Parliament. I happen to be chairman of a sub-committee in this House, and I know how difficult it is to interest those who are not connected with new towns in what is an extremely important housing and social development.
I represent one of the new towns which is already well on the way to completion. Originally they were intended to be built in undeveloped, open areas, but in Hemel Hempstead we have had to face special difficulties, because the new town was added to an ancient and long established borough. The co-ordination of the whole into one town, which shortly will house 60,000 people and may, eventually, house 80,000, has produced many problems.
Much credit goes to the local authority and to the new town corporation for the co-operation and understanding both have shown and the sympathetic approach made by them to the problems they have had to face. I am glad to say that these difficulties are being overcome. True we need more amenities. We have some beautiful schools already, but we need more. We have halls, but we need more halls. We certainly need cinemas. On the whole, however, Hemel Hempstead is a great success, and I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that the majority of the inhabitants are busy,


happy, contented and settled. I hope that they and their families will remain settled for a long time.

Mr. Mitchison: I am very much obliged to the noble Lady for giving way. Would she agree with the Report of the Hemel Hempstead Corporation, which seems to bear out what she is saying on page 285, namely, that Government policy has prevented many desirable amenities and social attractions from being provided?

Viscountess Davidson: I will not be drawn by the hon. and learned Member, except to say that I keep closely in touch with my corporation and my local authorities and do everything I can to help them to get what they will get by degrees.
Many people still believe that the right policy is to continue to build in the old towns. Therefore, I wish to mention an important fact which has already been mentioned this afternoon, namely, that, on the whole, flats are much more costly than new town houses. Even if the capital expenditure on water, sewerage, new roads, shops, factories, offices and social facilities is added in the latter case, it is still cheaper for national and local exchequers to build 10,000 houses in a new town than 10,000 tall block flats in central areas, and they provide incomparably living and better working conditions.
Certainly I want to see more privately-owned houses in all the new towns, and a great deal still remains to be done in that respect if we want properly balanced communities. The more people who own their own houses the better. As regards by own new town, we have not as yet many privately-owned houses, and I want to see their numbers increase. We want to see more offices. It is difficult to persuade offices to come to new towns, but if we can attract them and those who work in them, I am certain this will also help towards a balanced community.
Most important of all, perhaps, is the future of the new towns. We have had one announcement from the Minister, and I hope that before long we shall hear more. I say that because success depends on being able to create a sense of security, and industries which have moved out of old towns into new ones want to know what the future position will be. Therefore,

we await anxiously further announcements from the Government.
I am extremely glad to have been closely connected with the development of a new town. It has been an exciting experiment. It has meant much additional work to me personally, as it has to all Members of Parliament who represent new towns, but they are proving a success, and, perhaps most important of all, they are bringing happiness and contentment to countless families, and that knowledge gives one great satisfaction. I am very glad, therefore, to be able to support the Second Reading of this Bill.

5.45 p.m.

Mr. William Hamilton: There seems to be substantial agreement in the House on the desirability of helping the new towns in the form suggested in the Bill. It was not always so. Recently I had occasion to read the Report of the debate on the Second Reading of the New Towns Bill on 8th May, 1946 It was introduced by the now Lord Silkin as what is now generally recognised to be an imaginative and creative attempt to solve one of the most important social problems facing industrial communities all over the world, namely, the excessive concentration of population in big cities and towns.
The Opposition of that day, now sitting on the benches opposite, to say the least of it, was exceedingly pessimistic. It is true that the Opposition did not divide the House, but my hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mrs. Mann) mentioned Mr. Speaker, who opened the debate for the Opposition. In the course of what I can only describe as a slightly doubting and disparaging speech, he said that of course all these new towns were still in Utopia.
That was the theme running through nearly every speech made by the Conservative Opposition at that time. The most extravagant language, naturally I suppose, came from the noble Lord the Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Hinchingbrooke), who said:
My approach…is one of alarm and despondency…the Bill…is frankly totalitarian in form.
He went on to say that the Ministry had resorted to monstrous powers and a very


great degree of ruthless direction, and said finally:
The right hon. Gentleman's policy will be on the scrap heap before very long."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th May, 1946; Vol. 422, c. 1154 and 1156.]
Eleven years have passed since then. How silly it all seems now. We can only commend the Government on their conversion, and if they lag only one generation behind Labour Party thought, then we will not complain unduly. From every point of view—from the social, from the aesthetic, from the economic point of view—the extension of the idea of new towns is eminently desirable. I agree with 90 per cent. of what was said by the hon. Gentleman the Member for North Angus and Mearns (Mr. Thornton-Kemsley). It is not often I can say that, so I take this opportunity of doing so.
Here we get the fantastic position repeatedly taken by the Government. They say, "This has had wonderful results, it is a wonderful experiment, therefore we will stop it." The Government have taken up that position repeatedly. Today the Minister in his opening speech went out of his way to say what a wonderful thing this was and that we were getting near the end of the journey. Of course, the hon. Gentleman qualified that somewhat because he represents a marginal seat in Scotland and, therefore, said that Scotland might get another new town soon. Well, we will not say how soon. Certainly it will not be before the next General Election, although it will probably be one of the carrots dangled before the marginal constituencies.
We have made halting steps only in dealing with overspill. Figures have been quoted about the extent of the problem in the big cities—in London. Manchester, Birmingham. Liverpool and, not least, Glasgow. I can see no alternative but the establishment of further new towns, as indicated in the New Towns Bill which we are now discussing.
I want to refer in particular to the new town of Glenrothes in my constituency. It is different from most of the new towns in that it is to provide a new community connected with the planned expansion of the coalmining industry in East Fife. We have had a late start compared with other new towns,

having begun in 1948. It was envisaged from the outset that there would be one miner in eight or nine of the population. I lived for many years in a mining village, in long rows where one's neighbours on either side and right down the street were miners. There one lived and talked of the pits and breathed the dust from them. When I compare that with what has been achieved at Glenrothes, it is almost breath-taking in its imaginativeness.
The originally contemplated population of 30,000 is not envisaged immediately. I think it will eventually be exceeded. The present population of 9,000 has its difficulties, as all the new towns have, such as the need for social amenities. The need for the Government to look ahead is of paramount importance. As to the Government's financial policy, I was interested in what the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Viscountess Davidson) said. Of course she wants more schools. Everybody wants more schools. Everybody wants more houses. Consequently, the Government say, "They are very desirable, and therefore we are stopping them." That is precisely what is happening in Glenrothes.
As to the housing problem in Glenrothes, a new colliery will be starting the production of coal this year. In passing, I would mention that the sinking of that colliery has taken 10 years. The first sod was cut in 1946. More than £10 million has been spent on the project, and it is only now producing coal. Right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite should ponder the fact that the nationalised industry has spent £10 million in order to provide coal for future generations. Let them not underestimate the difficulties experienced by the mining industry and the efforts of the Government to ensure balanced communities developing alongside the mines, including the deliberate planning of migration of miners from West Scotland to East Scotland which has gone on with remarkably little friction.
The housing outlook is not as good as it ought to be. It is estimated that 240 houses will be built in 1958. That falls short of the number of houses needed to accommodate transferred miners and balance the population at the appropriate dilution figure. According to the corporation's estimate, the shortfall is 125 houses


or more than 33 per cent. Not only is there a shortfall in numbers, but there is a reduction in the standard of housing as a result of deliberate Government policy. The Scottish Housing Handbook was issued in mid-1956, and the Grenrothes Development Corporation studied it, liked some of its recommendations and wished to carry them out, but it was not allowed to do so by the Department of Health.
This is another instance of someone wishing to do something which is good and of the Government preventing it. The corporation has been informed by the Department of Health that the control of costs for future contracts will be tightened. The Department of Health—I should like a specific statement on this matter—also seems, for purely financial reasons, to have scotched the idea of a clinic in Glenrothes, although the original suggestion that there should be a clinic came from the Department of Health.
A statement has been made by the Government about the ultimate control of the new towns. Speaking entirely for myself, I do not like it. In the new towns we have young, virile populations—the Joint Under-Secretary said that it is of no immediate importance in Scotland, but it is of immediate importance in England, and so the principle applies—which want control of their own towns. One of the complaints of the Glenrothes population is that it has no control over the corporation. I appreciate that the corporation tries to meet the community as far as it can, but there is no redress of grievances. In such a situation, where there is no democratic control over one's development corporation, one tends to get, perhaps unconsciously, dictatorial and cavalier treatment of the townspeople.
When the economic development of the new towns is complete—it is imminent in England and Wales—a new body will be set up by the Government to handle the assets of the new towns. In another place the Government explained that the situation would be exactly the same as in old towns and other urban communities throughout the country where certain property was owned in respect of which the local authorities had certain functions.
That may well be, but the assets of the new towns have been developed as

a public investment. I certainly do not want—I hope my party does not want—those assets to be handed over at, maybe, knock-down prices to private enterprise. Nothing that has been built up by public investment should be handed over at knock-down prices by persons who have perhaps been appointed on a basis of patronage. In the years 1945 to 1951 the Labour Party had to face the gibe of "jobs for the boys". The feeling in the new towns is that the Government are now angling to create more "jobs for the boys" in the organisation which will eventually be set up. The Labour Party will certainly watch the legislation with very great care.
I join with almost every hon. Member who has spoken in urging the Government to reconsider their determination not to pursue a policy which has been so eminently successful for eleven years. If the new towns have been a roaring success—there is every indication that they have; Ministers admit it—the Government should carry on with the good work. The Government have had so many failures that they can ill afford to cast away one success even though it was originated by the Labour Party.

6.0 p.m.

Mr. Martin Maddan: There is one sort of good satellite in which this country has beaten the Russians to the the post. That is the satellite towns which we are discussing this afternoon. The path of the first Russian satellite town of 65,000 people is still being planned. It is to be built in the Khimki district near Moscow. We can regard the debate as being on a subject in which this country is certainly ahead and is the object of study by visitors from many other countries.
It was not quite fair of the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. Hamilton) to have supposed that the Conservative Party is or was opposed to the principle of new towns. He might just as well say, because of the interjections of his hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), that his party is against the provision of further finance for the new towns.
In fact, the Conservative Party, then in opposition, did not divide the House against the Measure and if further proof is needed it is to be found in the pudding,


that the new towns have gone ahead under a Conservative Government at a greater speed than ever before.

Mr. Sparks: Very cheap.

Mr. Maddan: The hon. Member may say that it is very cheap, but it is certainly the truth. I am basing myself on facts and not on interpretation.

Mr. Sparks: I am sure that the hon. Member will appreciate that in the first few years after the proposal to establish new towns there was nothing to show except plans. In some cases it took two years to prepare the master plan, so that when the Conservative Government took office, in 1951, all the ground work had been done and the impetus had been given.

Mr. G. Lindgren: Would it not be fair to say that the hon. Member's Conservative friends in Stevenage, the town he represents, took their opposition to having a new town in Stevenage to the House of Lords, delaying the building of the new town of Stevenage for nearly two years?

Mr. Maddan: I want, first, to deal with the argument about the planning of the new towns. Of course, they have to be planned, but when the Conservative Government took office the whole rate of house building was accelerated by about 50 per cent. and the new towns got more than their fair share of the increase. What the hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks) said in no way undermines the case I have made, because if it had been Conservative policy to belittle the new towns and stop them being a success, the effort would not have been poured into them which has been poured into them.
The hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren) made an allegation about opposition in Stevenage to the new town. Of course there was opposition. I do not know precisely the politcal views of those who did oppose the proposal, but, certainly, people of all parties are upset when a huge new town is put on their doorstep. The fact that there are good and increasingly good relations in Stevenage between the people of the new and old towns does credit to both. The fact that certain residents in Stevenage disliked the idea of a new town on their doorstep is in no way to be taken as

proof, or even as an indication, of the opinion of the Conservative Party on new towns. I repeat what I said to the hon. Member for Fife, West: it is better to judge on facts than on assumptions and hypotheses.
I want now to say that I welcome the Bill to provide further finance for the new towns. In providing this money we shall reinforce successes, and that is a good way to spend money. We should judge those successes not only on the quantity or tonnage of bricks and mortar, but also on the atmosphere and happiness which have been created and to which several hon. Members, notably my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Viscountess Davidson), have referred.
I recently spent a day walking round Stevenage and talking to people in the shopping streets in both the old town, where most people still go shopping, and in the neighbourhood shopping centres. I found it hard to find people with any criticism to voice. If they had a criticism, it was that the prices in some of the local shops were high, higher than in neighbouring areas.
Hardly any complaints about the rent levels were made, although that matter is often thought to be something which is so far to the fore in the minds of new town residents that one would have thought that they stayed awake at night thinking about it. In my experience, that is certainly not true. While it is right to recall the lack of various facilities in various new towns—because in that way we can hope to have matters improved—it is also right to recall those things in which there has been a great improvement.

Mr. Mitchison: The hon. Member is speaking of Stevenage. He will find some interesting comments in the Stevenage Development Corporation's Report. There is one passage about which I should like some reassurance from him. The Report says, in page 362:
Considerable public feeling was aroused and there was some resistance by tenants against accepting the Notices to Quit which were necessary to put the increases"—
that is, the rent increases—
into effect. But when it came to the point practically all tenants paid the increase in many cases shouldering burdens which the Corporation realised must have involved difficult readjustments of family budgets.


May we take it that the family budgets have been readjusted? Perhaps those people now have less to eat.

Mr. Maddan: I want to tell the hon. and learned Member something about the background of the occasion to which he refers. It had not been my original intention to do so, because it is not a very noble history, but I shall do so since the hon. and learned Member has referred to it.
The fact is that an increase in rent, which happened to be combined with a supplementary rate, created a difficult situation for tenants. I want to refer to the resistance and agitation. Anybody resists having to pay more for anything, but the agitation took the form of demonstrations which were far from orderly, which caused the police a great deal of trouble, which resulted in damage to property, in children in prams being pushed across the High Street in front of traffic to hold it up and stop it, and in local dignitaries, such as the vicar, making protests, as the vicar did in his sermon the following Sunday.
It is perfectly clear that the resistance apparent from that sort of thing was synthetic and had been worked up by people whose interest it was to work up agitation. As the corporation reported, and it was perfectly clear from the fact that when it came to the point people did pay up, the resistance was not nearly as strong as one might have been led to suppose.
I was saying that people do not lie awake at nights thinking about increased rents and I said that that was my view after having spoken recently to many people living in the new town. I was about to add that in one respect things are very much better now than they were five years ago. Five years ago, the provision of schools was a very pressing problem, but now, although the position is by no means perfect, it is certainly not a matter of great concern.
There are, however, still some matters which affect the Second Reading of this Bill, because it is no good voting money for a certain purpose if other purposes ancillary to that are not achieved. It means that the main purpose is undermined. In particular, I want to point out that Stevenage has no hospital and no out-patients' clinic, and I hope that my

right hon. Friend will put all possible pressure on his colleague the Minister of Health to hasten that work—

Mr. Albert Evans: My information is that at Harlow, and. I think, also at Stevenage, the hospital boards are having to hold up the work as a consequence of the Minister's suggestion that these capital projects should be deferred for a time.

Mr. Maddan: Stevenage has never been authorised to build a hospital—we never got so far—so there is no question of anything being deferred. As for authorisation for money for an outpatients' clinic, the main problem was for the hospital board and the corporation to agree upon a site. That has now been done and there is no reason at all to suppose that the money will not be forthcoming, but this matter has taken a long time. I say that it is no good merely authorising money for the building of houses and factories if my right hon. Friend does not also exercise his influence with those of his right hon. Friends who are responsible for other services.
Another subject is roads. Stevenage new town was planned as it was because a by-pass road was to be built around it. The Great North Road bisects the residential and the factory areas. I am glad to know that there seems some hope of progress in the purchase of land for the by-pass—and, I hope, its construction—but until that is done the feeling of homogeneity in the new town can never be achieved, split as it is at present by the Great North Road.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Stirlingshire (Mr. Woodburn) spoke of community buildings, and of a church that he had seen which, in the middle of the week, could be used as a hall. I was not quite clear whether he meant that there should be such buildings in the new towns, or that there already were such buildings and that they should be imitated. There certainly are such places in Stevenage. They are a great success, and provide a social centre as well as a place of worship. In this, the churches are resurrecting the practice and habit of the Middle Ages, and it is a practice which has much to commend it.
There is in Stevenage a great shortage of premises for youth clubs, and since there are so many young people there it


is very important that premises should be provided. Lack of premises, however, is not the only hindrance. Finance in general and a shortage of adult helpers are also obstacles. I believe that the corporation wants to help in this matter, and I hope that my right hon. Friend will not be too hard on it if it makes proposals to him. As I say, this work is obviously very important to a town with such a large proportion of young people.
To return to the thorny problem of rents, I believe that, in Stevenage, they represent about one-fifth of the earnings of new town workers. I really do not think that that is an excessive proportion. My impression certainly is that the people who pay it, though they would clearly like to pay less, think it worth paying it to have a good house and good surroundings for themselves and their children. The fact that there is a waiting list of people wanting to live in Stevenage speaks for itself.
Even more important is the fact that people are now asking to come to Stevenage because of the recommendations of friends or relations already living there. The manufacturer of some fast-selling or good-selling consumer product regards that as the highest praise his product can get, and this achievement of the Stevenage Development Corporation merits our praise. The corporation is also going ahead with the building of one-room flats for old people. That, too, merits our praise, because it means that young families are now able to have a widowed mother, say, or a father on retirement, to live near them—

Mr. Mitchison: As the hon. Gentleman takes that line, I wonder whether he would tell us whether he agrees or disagrees with the views of his own corporation. In its Report, the Stevenage Development Corporation says:
The whole question of the financing of this great social and economic experiment of the new towns, in the Corporation's view, needs re-examining. Until this is done one sees but little hope of stabilising, certainly not of reducing, rents; and high rent levels appear to the Corporation to constitute the most dangerous threat to the prosperity of the town.
Do those views apply to the hon. Member?

Mr. Maddan: The hon. and learned Gentleman did not give the page number,

but I am familiar enough with the Report not to need to look at it. I am also familiar enough with the fact that my corporation would like to be able to borrow money cheaply and so have cheaper rents. That is quite a proper attitude for it to take. On the other hand, we have to see that that wish fits into the whole picture of the country's economy. If we are trying to fight inflation it is no good expecting exceptions to be made in favour of our favourite children, and I do not think that I should be doing my job as Member for my constituency were I to try to get Stevenage exempted from the burden placed on the community as a whole.
As I was saying before I was interrupted, people like to come and live in the new towns—certainly in Stevenage—despite the comparatively high level of rents. One indication of the prosperity that attends people in the new towns is that the Stevenage Corporation finds that the demand for garages coming from people who have lived there for about three years is two-thirds as high again as from those just taking up residence. That suggests that, after three years in the new towns, people are so much better off that they can afford to buy the car they could not afford before.
I should like to bring to the attention of my right hon. Friend one small point about garages. If a garage is built as part of the house the rent for it goes into the housing rent pool, but not if the garage is part of a block of garages. Since, as a result of this increased prosperity, more garages are needed and are having to be built in blocks, perhaps that anomaly could be looked into and removed.
The fact is that the new towns are becoming the homes of the new industrial aristocracy. The firms in these towns are go-ahead, progressive and efficient, and they pay good wages. Conditions are good and, despite high rents, people are able to improve their standard of life.
Industrialists in the town fear that they may become a high-cost area of manufacture because the rents charged for the new town houses are higher than other rents. I think it fair to say that that assumes no flexibility in the choice people make about what they should spend money on. If people wish to spend more on decent housing than they were able


to do in other circumstances, it does not necessarily mean that the area becomes a high wage cost area as well. Rents are, of course, only one part of people's outgoings. They may well find it worth while to increase their expenditure on rent to get decent accommodation and to reduce it in other directions, and feel much better as a result
There is some misapprehension locally about one matter, and if I mention it in this House, it may help to put matters right. There is a feeling that many people are commuting from Stevenage and going to work at Luton, a centre of the motor car industry, with its traditionally high wages and also its traditional lay-offs. In fact, the figure is only 200 or 300 out of the total population of the new town, so the situation is not very serious.
I would add that Vauxhall's stayed in Luton and did not expand into Stevenage because that is what the firm wanted to do. There are people wishing to cause agitation and misapprehension—we have heard some echoes of this from the benches opposite—who are putting it about that Vauxhall's were forbidden to come to Stevenage for fear of importing high wages to the town. I have made inquiries about that and it is certainly not true.
In this era of high interest rates the question of housing rents is important. Also important is the improved building efficiency of the building contractors. I am glad that the Stevenage Development Corporation has been employing a new method of planning and taking account of contractors' buying and site arrangements which may lead to a big saving in building costs. Because of high interest rates there is a reduction in the speed with which tenders are let, and their size, and at present the Stevenage Corporation is not building so many houses as a year ago. This may lead to improved efficiency on the part of contractors who wish for contracts in the new towns. Therefore, the high interest rates may well lead to a more competitive situation and improved efficiency in the building industry, which will have a long-term beneficial effect on rents.
Architectural standards vary in the new towns. In Stevenage, it is a striking fact that the factory area is architecturally the most noble. The new town

centre now under construction may restore the balance between the architectural merits of the residential and factory buildings. But while it is quite right that experiments in domestic building should be made, I think attention must be given to the appearance and attractiveness of domestic building.
Another thing I wish to say about residential building—I say it at every opportunity—is that encouragement must be given to the corporations to succeed in providing middle-class housing in the new towns. That has not been done successfully in any of the new towns although more success has been achieved in some than in others. In Stevenage, it is not very successful. Unless this is put right, the new towns will never become the natural and normal places which my right hon. Friend wishes them to be.
If a new town grows to accommodate 60,000 people and planned development stops at that figure, further development will certainly have to go on to provide for about another 20,000 resulting from the natural growth in families, people moving into the new towns, and so on. I urge that the matter be so arranged that the new towns do not impinge upon the Green Belts in which they are situated. I do not go all the way with my hon. Friend the Member for North Angus and Mearns (Mr. Thornton-Kemsley) in his dislike of flats. It may be necessary to build fiats to provide the accommodation required within the designated areas of these new towns.
The future of the new towns must be made clear and so I welcome the statements of my right hon. Friend on that subject. I hope that all with whom my right hon. Friend consults will be as helpful as possible. He has made clear that he will consult interested parties before he makes the final decisions about future arrangements for the new towns. Some of those with whom he will consult, like the Stevenage Urban District Council, are bodies composed of people of a political faith opposite to his own but, nevertheless, I trust that they will co-operate and help him, because only in that way can the best arrangements be made.

6.27 p.m.

Mr. W. E. Wheeldon: The hon. Member for Hitchin (Mr. Maddan) suggested that we


should judge the record of the Government regarding new towns on the facts of the case. One fact which hon. Members should bear in mind, and which should be remembered by the Minister, is that the Government have not sanctioned a single new town in England and Wales since they have been in office. The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland said that we were nearing the end of our journey in England and Wales. I thought he implied that there were to be no more new towns. He made no straight statement, and I thought that he was afraid to make a positive statement to that effect.

Mr. Hamilton: The Joint Under-Secretary was quite specific about it in an intervention.

Mr. Wheeldon: If that is so, I think it a deplorable decision. Having made a statement of that kind, surely it was the duty of the hon. Gentleman to give the House some reason why such a decision had been arrived at. But no reason was given and I hope that the Minister will tell the House why that decision was made.
Despite all the statements from the Minister in connection with housing, we need more and more new towns in England and Wales. That is the only rational and effective way of dealing with the congestion in our large cities. It is nonsense to say that there is no housing problem today. It exists not only in Scotland, about which we have heard so much, but also in England and Wales. Housing conditions in the large cities like Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool are deplorable. The Government are doing nothing effective to solve the problem. I know what the Government have said and done about slum clearance, but in Birmingham—I am more familiar with conditions in Birmingham—the problem is incapable of solution except by providing a new town or towns.
In support of that statement, I may perhaps be permitted to give one or two facts about the situation in Birmingham today. We have there a problem of approximately 65,000 people who are on the housing waiting list, 40,000 of whom are families without houses of their own. That is something to be deplored. What is more, we have about 50,000 substandard houses. A large proportion of

the working-class houses privately owned in Birmingham are sub-standard.
We have done a tremendous amount of work in acquiring houses in Birmingham in our redevelopment areas and so on. Nevertheless, any representative of Birmingham today, whether a Member of this House or a member of the local authority, is deeply conscious of the tragic problem that is continuing in cities like Birmingham in connection with housing. It is borne in upon us week by week in the interviews which we have with our constituents. It strikes at one's heart—without anything in the way of what is called "sob stuff"—when families come to us and ask, "What can you do?" Some of those families have been on the register for seven, eight and, in some cases, ten years, without their housing requirements having been met. That ought not to be.
It is a striking and deplorable fact that, much as we claim to have done in terms of housing in this country, there has never yet been a time when we could say that every family in the country was decently and adequately housed. Despite all our scientific and wonderful achievements, that, nevertheless, remains a blot on our record. Because of that, I think it is most unfortunate that the present Minister of Housing and Local Government has apparently set his face steadfastly against the creation of any more new towns. He has certainly done so in respect of Birmingham, and I think that his decision and attitude of mind applies to other places as well.
It is nonsense to say that a city like Birmingham can solve its housing problems within its own boundaries. It has practically no land suitable for housing purposes. It must go outside. That is not a problem for which Birmingham itself is responsible. We cannot indict Birmingham and say, "You should have done something about this." Planning is a national matter. I thought of that while listening to the most interesting speech of the hon. Member for North Angus and Mearns (Mr. Thornton-Kemsley), when he referred to the question of flats and whether flats should be built and reminded us of the high cost of building flats. He spoke about some flats with which I am very familiar, the Aston flats in Birmingham. I have been to see them fairly recently.
I have seen the architects concerned and I suppose that they would point to them with a great deal of pride. But to me they were tragedies, monuments to our stupidity, our lack of planning and lack of land resources. Families, particularly those with young children, isolated in ten or twelve storey blocks of flats, is something which ought not to be, and need not have been if we had planned our land resources properly.
The local authority certainly does not want flats of that kind. It is compelled by circumstances to undertake such projects. It would rather build the ordinary cottage type of property which families on the housing register prefer. It is no use saying to people who come for a house, "You cannot have a house, but here is a flat." They immediately raise objections. Ninety-nine out of 100 people in Birmingham say, "I do not want a flat." They want a house with a garden and the open spaces which one gets on the ordinary municipal estates in Birmingham and other places. Therefore, I emphasise once again that this problem, so far as the large towns are concerned, is one which can be met only by going outside and undertaking the building of new towns.
We have tried other ways. The Minister knows all about them because he has been thoroughly informed on this point. We have made contact with fifty or more local authorities. Local authorities in these days of a 7 per cent. Bank Rate are not going to enter into agreements with Birmingham and other large towns. We cannot expect them to do so. Why should they have a liability of that kind placed on their shoulders? It is far too much for them. If it is suggested that the new towns should be undertaken at the expense of the exporting city or borough, I say that is a fantastic and quite unrealistic suggestion. Why should Birmingham. London or Liverpool be compelled to undertake the financial liability of building new towns? Yet that is what is being suggested by the Government.
It is something which departs entirely from the spirit which underlies the 1946 Act. I hope that the Minister has not said the last word on the matter of new towns and that he will reconsider it in view of the deplorable housing conditions which still persist in Birmingham and

other places. It is a national problem. Parliament recognises it to be such, and I hope that by agreeing to review his previous attitude towards the matter he will bring forward some solution, not merely for the cities as such, but for those individuals who have waited so long and, apparently, so hopelessly for new housing conditions and new environments. This is something which is urgent and about which some immediate action should be taken.

6.37 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Gough: I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend will be able to deal with the criticisms which were raised in the earlier part of the speech of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Small Heath (Mr. Wheeldon). I think that he ought to bear in mind a comparison of the facts of history—first, what his own Government and then what the Conservative Government have done in the building of houses and the clearance of slums. I was in great sympathy with the remainder of his speech, so I shall not pursue it.
I believe I am right in saying that the hon. Gentleman had the distinction of being the first Sassenach on his side of the House to address us this afternoon. I believe that every single speaker before him on the Opposition benches came from north of the Border. I say that in no form of criticism, because I know that there is a great deal of concern about Glasgow as being one of the places; and now we hear that Birmingham is another. I want to put this point particularly to the hon. Gentleman.
I know that many people think that we can more or less wave a magic wand and say that we will have another new town, and the problem is over. I have put this point before in the House and I want to put it again. I think that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren) will agree with me, because he nodded when I said this before. The real danger exists particularly in regard to the new towns around London. Thirty thousand people have moved into Crawley and one would expect 30,000 fewer people in London; but there are not. There are actually more people in London since we started the new towns.

Mr. S. Silverman: Where do they come from?

Mr. Gough: I do not know where they come from. They may come from north of the Border or from East Lancashire. We have not yet heard from the hon. Gentleman about that; but it is a fact.
Furthermore, when people come to the magnificent factories that are being built in Crawley and other new towns they leave behind rather dilapidated old factories. What is happening to them? Somebody else is going into them. What is happening to the decrepit houses that people are leaving in London? Is anybody pulling them down? Of course not; other people are going into them. I ask those questions of the Minister. The hon. Member for Small Heath should not get starry-eyed, believing that to have new towns near Birmingham and elsewhere will necessarily solve that problem.

Mr. Wheeldon: I do not think anything of that sort. If we could get the hon. Gentleman's support we could deal with the matter very effectively. When we tried in the past we received no encouragement from the Government's present supporters.

Mr. Gough: I am just coming to that point. The hon. Gentleman must be patient.
The hon. Gentleman's party failed in the years after the war, when they were in office, because they always took on too much, especially in house building. They always liked to say to the people. "We have hundreds of thousands of houses on the stocks", but far fewer houses were built than they suggested. That is why our Government, in their wisdom, are not making a sort of propaganda campaign of starting another 15 or 20 new towns. We are tackling the job in a proper, businesslike way. We intend to see how the present development is working out.
I have already put to the House my view that it is not much good putting new towns upon valuable agricultural land. I was interested in the issues raised on this question by the Minister, although I could not quite follow the argument. If we put a big industrial town on agricultural land we shall thereby be a number of acres short. It is no good putting all these towns out in the country and

dotting them about the place if the main towns and cities from which the people are supposed to come are getting more inhabited instead of less. It is a mathematical problem the solution of which I do not understand. It is the problem which affects the constituency of the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) and about which I have no doubt the hon. Member will speak.
I would now say one or two words about my own new town, Crawley. If I were asked what is the most absorbing and most interesting duty I have as a Member of Parliament, the answer would be that it is undoubtedly my connection with one of the new towns. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. Hamilton) is not in his place at the moment, because I would cross swords with him. I was not in this House when the New Towns Bill was debated, but I have certainly never heard of anybody but a few hon. Members on both sides of the House who criticised the new towns.
I think I am right in saying that the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, who opened the debate, talked about one new town having 90 per cent. of its population under the age of 45. The hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) has a card-index system; I do not know whether he has any nice, quick ones for me about Crawley. He has been jumping up and down, so perhaps he may be able to oblige me. I think he will find that Sir John Bennett says that the average age of the people in Crawley is about 28 years. That is a measure of the amazing experiment that is going on in these towns and an indication of one or two very serious problems which will face us.
Our first problem is that we are getting a very great number of teen-agers. The strange thing is that we do not seem to have very many "teddy boys" in Crawley, but we have an enormous and ever-growing number of teen-agers, and we shall have a very serious youth problem which we all have to consider most carefully. We are getting our playing-fields, but we have not enough money for changing-rooms and a lot of other things. I know that in the not-too-distant future there will be an opportunity to discuss local government finance, but this is a very serious problem which faces


every local authority, irrespective of political colour.
I would like to read a paragraph or two of a letter which I received very recently from the Clerk of Crawley Urban District Council. He says:
It is felt that new town authorities present exceptional circumstances which merit exceptional treatment. They are faced with a large volume of capital expenditure over a comparatively short period. All the services which other authorities have provided over a long period have to be provided quickly at something like three times pre-war cost. Put shortly, it is the problem of rapidly expanding population to which the Edwards Committee referred in paragraphs 60–65 of their Report.
We all agree that it is a very serious problem.
I should like the opportunity of having a local moan on exactly the same point—it has nothing to do with my right hon. Friend the Minister—as was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Mr. Maddan). It is a question about Crawley Hospital which, on any terms, is an absolute scandal. I have not been able to find out where the blame lies, but I think it is with the regional board. It may well lie with the Ministry. I am not prepared to say; perhaps it is 50–50. It is not much good bringing this Bill to the House to build more and more houses in a town like Crawley and not to give the people adequate hospital facilities. The whole story in Crawley was merely that nobody could make up his mind where to put the hospital.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: We have not one at all in Harlow.

Mr. Gough: There is not a proper one at all in Crawley. There is only the old cottage hospital, with a nissen but for the out-patients. It is a disgrace, and I hope that my right hon. Friend will use his fullest authority and persuasion in this matter.
My hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland spoke of amenities in the new towns. Crawley has the rather extraordinary problem of Gatwick Airport being built quite close. Crawley lies on what is probably one of the most busy suburban railway lines—it is a bit more than suburban—on one of the busiest passenger-carrying railways in the world. I am assured by the British Transport Commission and by its Southern Region, which has given me a great deal of help in this matter, that they will be able to cope with the extra traffic

which will arrive, first by reason of the ever-increasing traffic between Crawley and its normal business and commercial connections with London and, secondly, by the growth of Gatwick Airport.
We all know what happens when a new airport is built. When we were first informed about Gatwick I was told that it would be a nice little airport, and I gave in and did not continue my resistance. I am now told that it is to be rather bigger and that Croydon Airport is to be closed. That will make Gatwick a bigger airport still. That will mean more and more traffic on the railway, which already serves East Crawley in one direction, Brighton in another, and Worthing, Chichester and Portsmouth in yet another direction. It is all very serious. If we are to have a town which eventually will grow to 60,000 or 80,000 inhabitants we must avoid cluttering up the railways, or eventually we shall make transport facilities absolutely hopeless.
Hon. Members on the other side of the House have referred to our outlay of £350 million as an investment. Of course it is an investment. I was rather interested in the remarks of the hon. Member for Small Heath, who asked why Birmingham should pay for this, why any town should pay for this. That does not marry with the remarks made by the hon. Member for Fife, West, who said that all these towns should be handed over to the local authorities. Hon. Members cannot have it both ways. I do not think that we can have taxpayers providing the money and, when the new town is completed, have it handed to the ratepayers.

Mr. Julius Silverman: They are two entirely different problems. When a new town community is constituted it is the democratic and sensible thing to pass over its government to that community, but the cost of building the new community is an entirely different problem. This applies also to other cities.
Birmingham is faced with the problem of overpsill and overflow because of large numbers of people who come into the city. Many of them are not Birmingham people at all, but they are helping industry in Birmingham to assist the export drive, which is assisting the whole country. Surely that ought not to be considered a financial problem for Birmingham. I suggest to the hon. Member that


the two problems are quite distinct. One is the problem of the democratic government of the community as it exists and the other is financial provision to create it and to deal with that problem is not the task of a particular city.

Mr. Gough: I am obliged to the hon. Member, but I do not think that he has carried the argument further. I was not talking about local government as such. Of course, the local government will be in the hands of the local authorities, but this is a question of who is the landlord?
The hon. Member for Small Heath was saying that Birmingham should not be the landlord, it would be most unfair for Birmingham to be the landlord, and the nation should be the landlord. In other words we are all together over this and are going to nationalise it. [HON. MEMBER: "No."] It is all very well for an hon. Member to say "No," but when the gas and electricity industries were nationalised the argument was put forward that local authorities should have nothing to do with them. Now, apparently, when the new towns have been nationalised, the argument is put forward that local authorities are to take them over. I feel very strongly—

Mr. Mitchison: Mr. Mitchison rose—

Mr. Gough: I am sorry, but the hon. and learned Member for Kettering has been intervening the whole afternoon and I am trying to keep my speech short.
I want to put this matter not in any controversial form, but as something we ought to consider most seriously. At present, these towns are called new towns. I hope that it will not be very long before we can forget the word "new". When we started there was Old Crawley and New Crawley and someone suggested that they were absolutely opposed to each other. Now they are not opposed; there is all one new town. I hope that it will not become a freak town.
The argument was put forward by the hon. Member for Fife, West that 90 per cent. of the property, including the factories, should be put into the hands of the local authority. That would turn it into a freak town. No other town or city exists where such a very large percentage of actual property is kept invested in the hands of the local authority. This is no slur on any individuals, either

in my new town or anywhere else. It is the duty of all of us, particularly those in this House, to see that human frailties are not stretched too much. I can easily visualise that if such a step were taken, and all these properties were put in the hands of local authorities, there would be a temptation at local elections to say, "You get me in and we will get the rents down."

Mr. Lindgren: Surely the hon. Member will not say that that would be any different from what happens now?

Mr. Gough: I do not know what the hon. Member does in a local election, but I should not like that to happen. The point is that, if a person says that, he knows he cannot do it. In this case he probably would be able to do it at the expense of the industrialist.
That brings me to the next point I want to make. The industrialist must be kept in these new towns by every possible means. For that reason I was pleased that my right hon. Friend the Minister did me the honour of making a statement in my constituency. He was rather misquoted afterwards by several people. I believe today the hon. Member for Fife, West had some qualms about that statement.
I wrote to my right hon. Friend only a few days ago on this subject of the possible disposal of properties. I wish to read a sentence or two from his letter. Surely it would be a very wise thing either to sell the freeholds or very long leases to industrialists in order to keep industrialists there. Surely it would be a very unwise thing for industrialists to feel that their rents and everything else were to be subject to various changes of local policy and local politics. Therefore, I was pleased when I had the letter from my right hon. Friend which said:
…you can assure your constituents right away that when I said that the new agency would have power to sell properties or to grant leases if it thinks fit I was not at that point thinking primarily of houses.
I would expect that the agency would be willing to sell individual houses to their tenants—as, indeed, Development Corporations are now. In this context, I understand that the Crawley Corporation has received practically no applications from tenants to buy the actual houses they rent—which are normally in a row of rented houses. But they do receive such applications to buy houses designed for sale—and these they meet."


I hope that we shall not get an element of party politics in this matter. I immediately withdraw if I have started taunting hon. Members opposite about nationalisation—

Mr. Mitchison: The hon. Member would not allow me to correct him.

Mr. Gough: The hon. and learned Member for Kettering has had a very good innings. I think he has intervened in every other speech made from this side of the House. I thought it would be a little salutary if he did not intervene in mine, but he can do so with pleasure.
These new towns have made a very fine start. At the moment they have problems similar to those in a young family, but there are also tremendously encouraging signs. Our community is tremendously virile. Everything it does is done with tremendous verve, and that includes politics in a big way. It will be up to this House, in the fairly near future, to make a wise decision about the future of new towns. I hope very much that that decision will he made after the most careful thought, because a wrong decision would mean that everything that has been spent and done to date would have been spent and done in vain.

6.58 p.m.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: The Bill with which the House is dealing has one limited purpose. It is a Bill to authorise the expenditure of a further £50 million on this general policy of the creation, maintenance and development of new towns. That £50 million has to be seen, as the Bill makes clear, against the background of the aggregate of £250 million which has either already been spent or is in process of being spent.
I think I am the first participant in this debate to enter a caveat against that further spending. I am at this moment opposed to it and I would not myself be willing to give the Government this further £50 million at this moment for this purpose. I oppose it in no grudging spirit.
I listened with very great sympathy indeed to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Wheeldon), who took part in the debate a little while ago and who described the problems of a large city like Birmingham. Indeed, I listened with the sympathy of experience, because I was born and

brought up in Liverpool and I had my own apprenticeship in public life on the estates committee of the Liverpool City Council. Liverpool's problems in this respect are very like Glasgow's problems or Birmingham's problems or the problems of any other conurbation. I have every sympathy, but I say that the new towns policy is only part, or ought to be only part, of a general national plan. The new towns policy is a cure for a disease after it has occurred.
Cobbett long ago described London as "The Great Wen". I do not know how he would have described it in the middle twentieth century or what words he would have found for the other overpopulated and overcrowded cities of our land.
How did they occur? They occurred by a drain of population from the countryside and from smaller towns—the attraction of the people from the small towns and the urban districts and sometimes from the agricultural districts into towns where work was easier to obtain, where amenities were greater and where life was more attractive. In the end, we had the problem with which the new towns policy is intended to deal.
But what national advantage would there be in so pursuing the new towns policy as to exacerbate the evil rather than to prevent its growth? Where is the advantage of taking people out of derelict, or almost derelict, housing conditions in a great town and housing them in a bright, new, attractive small town of their own if the only result is to fill the empty, derelict houses with a new population derived from the country or the smaller towns outside? What is the use of boasting about a new town that its population averages below 40 or 45 years of age, or in the case of the instance given by the hon. Member for Horsham (Mr. Gough) below 35, if that is done at the expense of increasing the proportion of old people in the other towns?
My right hon. Friend the Member for East Stirlingshirc (Mr. Woodburn) was perfectly right when he said that we had to consider this whole matter as part of a national policy of industry and population and particularly a problem of the location of industry. In these circumstances, for what reason do I say that at this moment to spend another £50 million in addition to the £250 million already spent or spending is not to be supported?


Because the £50 million could be better spent for the same general purposes in preserving the social capital of those small towns where it already exists and where it is now being wasted by a continued flow of population out of them.
There were two sides to this policy. They were, first, the new towns policy, certainly, and, second, the development area policy. On the one hand, we were saying, "Let us reduce the size of the inflated large towns". On the other hand, we were saying, "Let us stop this mischievous flow of population by substituting a policy of taking industry to the people for the policy of taking the people lo industry."
I want to show the House how this works by reference to my own constituency. I hope that at the end the House will see why I look with some anxiety and reluctance on the further spending of a large sum of public money in dealing with the results of a disease when it seems to me that we are encouraging the disease to grow or at any rate neglecting the necessary steps to prevent it from growing.
I represent two small towns in North-East Lancashire and the two urban district councils. They were new towns in their day. Colne was a new town in Roman days—hence its name, the old Roman Colonia. There are the vestiges of a Roman camp or settlement still to be found within the precincts of the constituency. Nelson was a new town a good deal more recently. It is, perhaps, a hundred years old. It was created in the days when the Lancashire cotton industry was booming and when Britain was the workshop of the world.
I have represented them for some twenty-two years. When I was first elected—I am not speaking in precise figures, but only to the best of my recollection—the electoral register contained some 56,000 to 57,000 names. Today, the electoral register contains some 42,000 names, a drop of nearly 25 per cent. in twenty years. This process is still going on.
Two or three years ago, the area was created a development area, and there is a development area board on which the local authorities of all the towns in the area are represented. The area stretches from Padiham, at one end, to

Colne at the other end, but anyone who knows what the industrial landscape in Lancashire looks like will also know that it is one great conurbation, to use the ugly word which is becoming so popular, of its own. One can travel from Padiham to Burnley, from Burnley to Brier-field, from Brierfield to Nelson, from Nelson to Colne and from Colne to Trawden without ever knowing where one passes out of one of the towns or urban districts into the other. This is the great North-East Lancashire Development Area.
I have some recent figures. Let me read the paragraph from the latest report made to the Chairman and members of the North-East Lancashire Development Area Committee:
Certain rather alarming facts have recently emerged from the official figures supplied by the Ministry of Labour and National Service. These show that despite all the efforts made by this Committee and other bodies to diversify the area's industrial structure, the net increase in the insured, non-textile labour force increased by only 658 (from 47,828 to 48,486) between June, 1952, and June, 1956. During the same period the textile industry reduced its insured working population by 6,543 (from 39,102 to 32,559).
The hon. Member for Horsham said that he did not know where the new population was coming from to replace the old population that was taken out of the great cities in the Midlands and the South and put into the new towns that were being created. Where does the new population come from? This area is where it comes from—this, and other places like it. Here there has been a reduction of 6,500 in the working population out of a total of 47,000— 12½ per cent.—in five years.
I ask the House to bear with me. I hope not to keep it very long, nor to bore it with too many figures. First, I should like to finish the quotation. After pointing to the drift of population in five years, the Report goes on to say:
The true position is probably much worse than these figures indicate, because of the large number of uninsured married women who have been made redundant by the reduction in textile production and are not included in the official figures.
The right hon. Gentleman will know what this means. Some married women prefer—and in the textile industry most of them prefer—not to be insured in their own right, but to rely upon their husbands' insurance, upon which they are


entitled to rely as married women, because they get very little less benefit for much less contributions if they do so.
Whether it was wise to have legislation which had that effect this is not the time to discuss, but there it is. The effect is that the Ministry of Labour figures for unemployment are falsified to that extent. They give the figures only of the insured population, and as nearly all married women in these districts work, and as nearly all of them are not insured, they do not figure in the returns at all, so that the figure of reduction in five years is far more than the 12½ per cent. indicated by the reduction in the numbers recorded of the insured population in the area.
The quotation goes on to say:
In addition, the only part of the Development Area in which the insured non-textile figure increased during this four year period was Padiham. In both Come and Nelson the figure dropped slightly, whilst in Burnley it remained the same.
The exception is significant, because only in Padiham has a new factory been erected since the area first became a development area.
I will not trouble the House with figures showing the proportions over the area in which the drop in the insured population is analysed. I do want the House to bear in mind, however, that two things have to be seen together: first, the rate at which we take out population from the overcrowded cities and put it into new towns and, secondly, the rate at which we are already encouraging the drift of population away from other towns—because to the extent that we do not deal with the drift of population into the towns we are frustrating the creative effort being made by taking population away.
What is the remedy? These two towns have got almost everything that a new town can offer. They are pleasant towns; the houses may be a little old-fashioned, but they are very pleasant, well-built houses, owned mostly by the people who live in them. In this connection one remembers the old Lancashire saying that in Lancashire everyone owns his own house and the house next door. The result is that the houses are well preserved.
There are more empty houses in this district than anywhere else in the country,

with a consequent loss of rates to the city. The towns are governed by progressive authorities. They have music festivals and local orchestras. They are well laid out. They have amenities of every kind. They have schools, hospitals and factories. They have a very intelligent, well-educated population. They are not too large, and they have ready access to some of the most beautiful countryside in the British Isles. Lancashire does not consist entirely of Blake's "dark, satanic mills": it has moors, lakes and mountains. There is no more pleasant holiday district in the country. What can we give people in any of the new towns that we cannot give them in these well-kept and well-built older towns? Nothing at all. It is all there, except work, and the whole purpose of the development area scheme was to take work there.
I shall be told in reply that the unemployment figure for the area is no higher than that for the whole country. Certainly it is not, because the unemployed drift away. If the population which has moved had remained in the district it would have a very much higher percentage figure of unemployed. This is concealed unemployment.
But over and above all that we have another problem. Even if the cotton industry had remained as prosperous as it was seventy or eighty years ago people would still object to living in a town dominated by a single industry. We had exactly the same problem in the mining villages of South Wales, Durham, and Scotland. Indeed, a great part of the new towns policy has been to build new towns in those very districts.
But here, where we have exactly the same problem, we do not need to build a new town. All we need do is to diversify the industry. If it is true that we should have had a problem even if cotton had continued to offer a secure livelihood as it once seemed to do, it becomes an even more serious problem when everyone knows that cotton has not the secure future that some other industres have. It has to be brought up-to-date, and in order that it should be brought up-to-date money requires to be invested in it. It requires capital investment, but the Government's policy prevents capital investment. How can anybody put money into it if he cannot


borrow, and who will put money in if he has to pay at least 7 per cent. upon what he borrows?
At the same time as the Government's policy makes it more difficult to put new capital investment into the area, or to bring new industries into the area, the Government are embarking upon ambitious schemes for European free trade which, whatever the ultimate result, must add substantially to the immediate problems of the textile industry. The only way to deal with that, surely, is not to leave the people there to bear the burden alone, but to provide them with alternative industries. That means financial assistance from the Government. It cannot be done in any other way.
We are spending £300 million on new towns for the same reason, but when we spend £300 million on the new towns we have to spend a large part not upon taking industries to them but upon building the towns from scratch. In the North-East Development Area of Lancashire, on the other hand, the towns are there and money spent on what is in the end exactly the same problem can be spent there on the necessary financial assistance which might take alternative industries to them.
I do not complain that the reasoned Amendment I put down was not called. I can understand that, had it been called, it would have switched the debate away from the new towns to a debate on a cognate, but different, problem. I hope it will not be thought in any way irrelevant or gate-crashing on to someone else's province to point out that this problem in North-East Lancashire is part of the general problem with which new town policy is concerned. I am not going to challenge a Division. I know that the overwhelming majority of the House wants to see the Government have this extra £50 million and would like to see it wisely, constructively, and imaginatively spent in the new towns. I do not seriously object to that, and I am sure that my constituents would not, either.
It is a very shortsighted and ill-balanced policy which spends these vast sums of money on trying to deal with the results of an unbalanced social and national policy if, at the same time, it allows the unbalance to grow and increase the very problem with which it is

designed to deal. I urge the Government to consider all these things together. Unless they want to have a growing problem on their hands, they must bring some reality and significance into the Order they themselves made by which North-East Lancashire became, for the first time, a development area.
The towns of North-East Lancashire have a long tradition. They have civic pride. They do not want to become an ageing, depopulated area, and it is not in the public or the national interest that they should. The remedy is in the Government's hands. It is the same remedy as they have applied to the new towns, but it must be applied at both ends of the scale.

7.23 p.m.

Mr. William Hannan: The hon. Member for Horsham (Mr. Gough), who is not now present in the Chamber, referred in the opening words of his speech to the fact that several hon. Members from north of the Border had been called earlier in the debate. While not wishing to enter into any argument about that, I hope that all hon. Members will recognise that, while we all have special knowledge of the areas from which we come, quite naturally, we are discussing a problem and a principle which is nation wide in its effect and application. We should consider it in that context. The criticisms I am about to utter of Government policy on new towns in Scotland applies equally to their policy in respect of Birmingham, Liverpool and other large cities.
At the conclusion of the eloquent speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) on behalf of his area, he pointed out that the Government must bear in mind the problem of industry first in respect of new towns. The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland knows that in the recent debates on the Housing and Town Development (Scotland) Act one of the points giving rise to the most heated discussion was the argument that the Act would not succeed because it did not provide for industry to go into the new towns. I want, therefore, to preface what I have to say by urging the Government, once again, to reconsider the provision of new towns to deal with the overcrowding which is now


prevalent and becoming a national disgrace. I shall refer later to the particular places I have in mind.
The Joint Under-Secretary of State referred to the deficit on general revenue account—in respect of the new towns in Scotland, I presume—and he quoted a figure of £300,000. It is true that, with a wintry smile, he said that this was money well spent none the less; but as my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. Hamilton) said, while speaking highly of new towns, the hon. Gentleman went on, nevertheless, to say that there were to be no more. If one reckons these things in terms of money, that deficit of £300,000, in the benefit it has brought to Scotland and its people in rehousing and in new buildings, bringing a new atmosphere into life, has been one of the best investments which the nation has made. Nobody would deny that.
The hon. Gentleman went on to say that in the new towns 7,000 houses had been provided, 5,000 in East Kilbride. Those 5,000 houses are not assisting Glasgow to the extent that they should. My information is that only 1,500 of those houses are occupied by people from Glasgow. All of us join in the tribute which my hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mrs. Mann) paid to Sir Patrick Dollan and his staff for the magnificent work they are doing. Here are the idealists of years ago now having the opportunity to carry into practice many of the things in which they believe; I am sure that they must be enjoying themselves very much more, perhaps, than some of us here who are talking about it.
But if the claim is made that East Kilbride is doing something to help to disperse the population of Glasgow, I think that that is a wrong claim. While it is true that, to the extent of 1,500 families, it has done so, it is not fulfilling the true function which was intended for it. The situation at East Kilbride is proof, if any wore needed, that more new towns are vitally necessary. To talk about dispersing the population to deal with Glasgow's overspill—dispersing 2,000 here, 3,000 there, and 5,000 elsewhere—is merely to tinker with the problem.
Why cannot the Government read again the terms of the debate which took place here in 1946 and 1947? Let them

try to put some greater drive, energy and idealism into planning the thing on a far bigger scale than they are attempting now.
I should be glad if the Joint Under-Secretary of State would tell me how much of the sum now being spoken of is now being devoted to Scotland.

Mr. J. N. Browne: I did not deal with that point in my speech, and the short answer to the hon. Gentleman's question is that there is no fixed sum allocated between Scotland and England. All the new towns get really what they need out of this allocation.

Mr. Hannan: I am grateful for that information.
To return to the matter of Glasgow's overspill and the more efficient distribution of industry, we know, according to figures supplied by the Minister, that of 100,000 housing applicants in Glasgow, 43,000 are from married couples, many with families but no homes. While it is true that cities like Liverpool, Birmingham and Manchester have their problems, we believe that there is no problem in the United Kingdom which is comparable with Glasgow's problem. The Minister knows of the strong dissatisfaction expressed with the recent legislation in the Housing and Town Development (Scotland) Act. I am not one of those who say that it is of no service at all. I admit that it is. I believe that it will make its contribution.
Both things should work together, town development and—what is more important to Scotland, particularly the industrial belt, with its frightful conglomeration and overcrowding the construction of more new towns. I believe that that should have priority over town development proposals. The town development, proposals are quite inadequate to deal with Glasgow's figures. I think that it just takes priority over the steel strip mill. If those two things are done for Scotland, then its future is assured.
The representations made to the Minister about the financial provisions of the Act are quite inadequate. We believe that it is merely a subterfuge of the Government to avoid their real responsibilities. I support what my hon. Friend the Member for Small Heath (Mr. Wheeldon) said earlier. It is not merely the responsibility of Glasgow, nor of


Birmingham, Liverpool or Manchester. The nation's needs and industries have helped to contribute towards the conglomeration and overcrowding. By attracting people into the cities the Government have a responsibility to assist those towns not only in providing minimum amenities and the services outside of the cities altogether, but making uniform communities provided with their own facilities, such as town halls, hospitals, and the like
Glasgow has 300,000 people to be exported outside the city. There is not sufficient territory inside on which to build the necessary houses. We have been over this topic so many times, but I take this opportunity to encourage the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland to urge the Government, in which he has authority and interest, for the construction of a minimum of two new towns in Scotland to deal with this frightful problem. Three hundred thousand people cannot possibly be rehoused inside the city. They cannot be rehoused even under the Town Development Act.
The Joint Under-Secretary of State made this admission. He said that a new town in Scotland is not ruled out. That was as far as he was prepared to go. It seems to me that in recent statements there has been wavering. The Minister of State for Scotland hinted some time ago that there would be no more new towns for Scotland. The Secretary of State said that there would be no more new towns in the immediate future.
This afternoon the Joint Under-Secretary said that the possibility is not ruled out. If it is not ruled out, may I ask him to use his interest to bring pressure to bear on the appropriate authorities to come to the decision that there will be not one new town but two as a minimum, because people in Glasgow cannot for very much longer persist with or endure the conditions with which they have had to put up for so long?
The Joint Under-Secretary represents one of the Glasgow constituencies. Glasgow is so large now that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) said, one passes from one town into another without knowing where the boundary begins and where it ends. So, in Glasgow, one passes from the town itself into the industrial area

of Coatbridge, Clydebank and the rest. In these circumstances, I am glad of the opportunity to say a word or two in support of this Bill. At the same time, I say that it does not go nearly far enough to deal with the festering sore in Scotland of providing new accommodation and new communities in new towns. It is the Government only who can act in this matter. They should reassert their policy in stronger terms at an early date and thereby bring some hope to the people of West Scotland.

7.35 p.m.

Mr. J. A. Sparks: I am glad that the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) has returned to the Chamber, because I was very interested indeed in what he had to say. I am in agreement with much of what he said. But there were parts in his speech with which I disagree very much. It is obvious that he had approached this question from the point of view of the economic problems of his own constituency. In his constituency there has been a dwindling away of the population because there is no work. There is not sufficient industry in the locality to employ the people. But here in the greater London area we are over-industrialised. We have far too many industries, and the industrial concentrations in and around London are far too great.

Mr. S. Silverman: I apologise for interrupting the hon. Gentleman so early, but we do not want to be at cross-purposes. I entirely accept what he says. That is the problem. But surely it is part of the same problem which arises in development areas. The reason why there is too much industry in the South is because there is too little industry in the North. Therefore, the remedy of providing alternative industries in areas which are short of alternative industries is part of the disease with which the hon. Gentleman is dealing.

Mr. Sparks: My hon. Friend has made my speech for me. That is precisely what I was going to say.

Mr. S. Silverman: The hon. Member said that he disagreed with parts of my speech.

Mr. Sparks: I will come to the points on which I disagree with my learned Friend later.
If the new towns conception is to be successful we must have a national economic plan for the proper dispersal of our industry in relation to the centres of populations. What we are lacking at the present time is a national plan. Even so, it is not easy to direct industry to specific and particular areas. As long as industry is mainly under private enterprise and is a possession of private individuals, it is very difficult to exercise compulsion upon them to go somewhere where they do not wish to go. Even the new towns around the London area have found great difficulty over the years in persuading sufficient industry to go to the new towns; for without the industry there will be no people at the new towns. It is no use building houses if there is not work for the people to do.
Therefore, if the Government or this House can evolve a national economic plan by which we should have a better distribution of industries, taking it to areas like that of Nelson and Colne, that seems to me the main solution to the problem in my hon. Friend's area. We could very well do with less industry in and around London. Believe me, that would solve an awful lot of our problems.
The idea of the new towns, however, so far as it has relationship to the problem in London, is, as I said earlier, approached from the opposite point of view to the approach of my hon. Friend. Over the generations—indeed, over centuries—over-industrialisation has attracted the younger generations of men and women who have come to London from the provinces because the work was here. There has always been work here. Even in the time of the great industrial depression between the wars there was employment in and around London. Many young people in particular came here to get work. Consequently, London and the surrounding district became intensely overcrowded and people were living in shocking conditions.
Therefore, something had to be done to ease the situation. The conception of the new towns was a magnificent idea. It had a direct connection with the brilliant reports for which the late Professor Sir Patrick Abercrombie was responsible—the Greater London Plan and the London County Plan—which designated that there were in London at the very minimum about 1½ million people who were

living in dreadful conditions and who ought to be provided with better accommodation outside London. The idea of the new towns, of which London has eight, was to draw away from London and into the new towns people who were living in overcrowded circumstances—most of whom were amongst the poorest range of the working-class population—so that in the new towns they would have a decent life, provided, of course, that industry also went to the new towns.
If I have any criticism to make, it is that the eight new towns are completely inadequate to cope with the overspill problem of London and the inner urban ring of Greater London. They are completely and hopelessly inadequate. The Minister this afternoon made the ominous statement that two of the new towns around the periphery of London are within about three or four years of completing their task. It is a bad thing to hear that said, because the problem has by no means been completed.
If the eight new towns reach their maximum population, they will have rehoused about 300,000 people, or possibly 320,000. Even assuming that all these people have come from the overcrowded areas of central London, when we compare their numbers with the R million that the Abercrombie Plan recommended should be rehoused outside the London area in the new towns, it will be realised that a very large measure of the problem is still untouched.
For this reason, we are all deeply concerned with the progress that the new towns are making. We have a justified criticism that the policy of the Government is not assisting the progress of development in the new towns, but, indeed, is severely crippling and hampering its progress. We are met today to agree to an advance of £50 million to the new town corporations, bringing up the total figure from £250 to £300 million. If one studies the Financial and Explanatory Memorandum, one finds that this £50 million that we are about to vote today is expected to cover a period of two years. The Financial and Explanatory Memorandum tells us:
At the present rate of progress the additional £50 million in the Bill will provide for commitments up to the end of 1959.
That is roughly two years. When we consider the advances which have been


made in previous years, we find that the rate of progress has been much more rapid than £50 million spread over two years. The fact remains that the rate of progress of development is running down.
In terms of purchasing power and costs as related to the year 1951, when the Minister's party came to power, the £50 million advance that we are making today, measured in terms of actual development, is worth only 34—£35 million. One-third of the £50 million is accounted for by increased costs of development, building and the rest, and by increased interest charges fastened upon the development corporations by the financial policy of the Government.
There is not one of the reports of the development corporations which does not draw attention to the crippling effect of high interest rates on the money which they have to borrow. When the Minister's party came to power in 1951, money was advanced to the development corporations at a rate of interest of 3 per cent. Now it is 6¾ per cent., or more than double. This adds a considerable burden to the task which the development authorities have to face in the development of their new towns and the provision of industry and of housing accommodation. Consequently, in their reports housing corporation after housing corporation indicate quite clearly that they will have to reduce the rate of progress and development because of the crippling effects of higher interest rates and higher building costs.
What about the effects on the overspill population? We have heard hon. Members opposite talk about the high wages that are paid in the new towns. The hon. Member for Hitchin (Mr. Maddan), for example, spoke of the good wages being paid at Stevenage and elsewhere and how people are flocking there because of the high wages; but that is not exactly correct by comparison with London. The rates of employment in London are much higher than the rates of employment outside and even at Stevenage.
The problem that we have to face is that the people who are in need of better housing accommodation are—I do not say exclusively, but in the main—the poorest section of the community, whose

wages, even in London and the surrounding area, are amongst the lowest. Yet even those wage rates are higher in London than those for similar employment outside, because London rates are much higher than the industrial rates outside. Therefore, if a person wants to move from the London area to, say, Stevenage, in the main he is faced with a reduction in his wages and with a much greater rent than that of his overcrowded dwelling even in London. This involves a real sacrifice in his wage standards and a higher rent for a better home. I am glad to say that many are able to face this economic problem, but there are many more who cannot do so, and consequently it is more difficult for them to solve their housing problem.

Mr. Maddan: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. The point is that a man who goes to a new town gets much better accommodation than before and is willing to spend more on it because he enjoys it more and less on other things. Secondly, it is part of the accepted policy of the unions, certainly as regards the engineering trade, not to apply the London differential to the new towns.

Mr. Sparks: I am not necessarily disagreeing with the hon. Gentleman on those points. I am trying to state the fact that when we are trying to encourage people to go out to the new towns in order to reduce overcrowding and overspill, and when we are trying to get industry to go there also, the policy now being pursued by the Government of increasing interest rates, which has led to a considerable increase in building costs, is accentuating the problem which such a person has to meet if he wants to move from London to Stevenage or to any other new town.
Therefore, instead of the right hon. Gentleman taking the view that the development corporations should pay 6¾ per cent. interest on the money needed for development, he should recognise that they are entitled to preferential treatment in that respect, since the heavy rise in those rates and in building costs is not only crippling development but is making it more and more impossible for the individual living in overcrowded circumstances to go to a new town and expect to live comfortably.
Therefore, whilst we welcome the proposal to provide a further £50 million for the development corporations, let us be under no illusion. The amount we are voting today is worth £33 million in 1951 terms, and one-third of it at least will be devoted by the development corporations to meeting increased building costs and increased interest rates. To that extent, insofar as it is a whittling down of the amount and a reduction in the development of the new towns, it is to be deplored. If we were anxious to maintain the rate of development, and if we took into consideration the increased interest rates, we should be voting tonight not £50 million but £75 million.
Let us hope that, despite the policy of the Government, the development corporations will carry on with their good work. I disagreed with my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne when he said that he was in favour of not voting the £50 million tonight. I am sure that on reflection he will find that he did not mean this, because it makes some contribution, particularly in the case of London, to providing better housing accommodation for people who are overcrowded, and I know that my hon. Friend is the last one to wish to stop that process.
There was a lot of truth in what he said, namely, that unless we can control the influx of people into over-crowded areas, to some extent we shall cancel the export of people to the new towns, but on balance there is some advantage. Despite the fact that people have come in and taken the places of those who have gone out, there has been an easing of the problem in many parts of London and greater London, due not only to the new towns, but also to the magnificent work of the London County Council.
I am sure that the House will give a Second Reading to this Bill, and I hope that the Minister will be able to take notice of some of the criticisms we have made. If he is anxious to develop the new towns and assist their rate of progress and development, I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that he will have the support of everybody on this side. I am not sure if it is possible but if in the Committee stage this sum could be increased to something more equivalent to the rate of development that has taken place in recent years, which I would place

in the region of £75 million, it would be money well spent and the right hon. Gentleman would be doing a good job.

7.56 p.m.

Mr. G. R. Mitchison: I agree with those hon. Members who have pointed out that the problems of housing, the distribution of industry in this country, and the questions that go with them, will not be solved merely by new towns. It may well be that in some parts of the country, for instance in the neighbourhood of Nelson and Colne, new towns do not meet the case and that factories are required. I imagine that any Government have to make up their minds about the allocation not only of money but of building labour between housing—including new towns and so on—factories, schools and other necessary purposes. Just in the same way, of course, the Government have to make up their minds, within the realm of housing, how much building labour or money—look at it as you wish—is to go to repairs and maintenance, how much to new building in existing towns, and how much to building in new towns or under overspill arrangements.
No one would dispute any of those propositions, but what we are considering particularly tonight is the question of an additional sum for new towns. In doing so, we have to look at the history of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite in the matter of new towns, at their present condition, and at their future prospects. So I say to the right hon. Gentleman that when his party first came into office it received a considerable heritage in the new towns themselves, in the people who were doing public-spirited and valuable work in the cause of the new towns, and in those who had thought them out originally.
The object of the new towns was twofold. Looked at in one way, it was to deal with the surplus population of some of the conurbations. That was the first intention. Looked at in another it was a great social adventure, and that has been recognised in lip service paid by the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends many times. We had a little more of it today, not only from the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, who then told us that there were to be no more new towns in England, but also from some of his hon. Friends who represent new towns and thought it advisable


to say once more what a good thing they thought new towns were.
That is the position. Let us see what has happened. These new towns were started in the first place in relief of the surplus population of conurbations. There were four of them round London, and at a later stage four more were added around London. Recognising the kind of point that has been put in the course of this debate, four other new towns were added in England and Wales—I am not talking about the Scottish ones—to meet industrial requirements—Corby, in the Midlands, for iron and steel; Peterlee, in County Durham, for coal mining; Aycliffe, for other industrial reasons; and one also finds an industrial reason for Cwmbran. Those were the purposes it was intended those towns should fulfil.
It is clear that the new towns by themselves were insufficient to deal with the problem of housing in and from those conurbations. We had from the Permanent Secretary of the right hon. Gentleman's Ministry the other day—it is, of course, a purely factual estimate—a "fairly conservative estimate" of about 2 million people to move out from the great towns and something over 500,000 houses to be built outside those towns. What was intended to be achieved by the new towns was nothing like that. The aim at present is a population of about 600,000 to be dealt with by the new towns. That has not yet been done, of course, but one recognises at once that even though these estimates are rough and in round figures, the present new towns cannot cope with even half of the population required to be dealt with. Town development does not seem likely to fill that gap by any means.
There is another way of looking at new town needs. We have heard stated definitely tonight by the Joint Under-Secretary, for the first time I believe, that the policy of the Government is not to designate any more new towns in England and Wales. As a result of that policy, which has been forming gradually for months past—we have all been watching it—what have we had? First, we have had an attempt by private enterprise—by the Chairman of Harlow Development Corporation—to start a new town at Allhallows. This shows the need for new towns of that kind. Also, we have had

the London County Council driven to do something which is the business of the Government unless and until they amend the New Towns Act—to start, on some terms or another, a new town out of its own rates. That is what it comes to. Birmingham is being pressed to do the same thing, also out of the Birmingham rates.
Another new town is clearly needed for the purpose for which Congleton was needed when the present Government came into office, which is to give some relief to the South-East Lancashire conurbation, Manchester and the surrounding area. Congleton never came to fruition under this Government. No other new town has been built. It has been left to private enterprise in the somewhat curious person of a man who has been, and still is, I think, chairman of one of the new towns, to try to to start something on his own. The local authorities are also told that this national problem ought to be settled by them and that this stingy Government requires them to pay for it out of the rates. Why should London and Birmingham be asked to pay for building new towns when an Act was passed—it has been praised by the present Government—to make new towns what they ought clearly to be, a national responsibility?
That is not the end of the story. There is something to be said about the future of new towns, and I shall say it in a moment, but I turn for a minute from that side of the matter to the other side. The new towns project—everybody must admit it—was a magnificent social venture. It has been the admiration of many people concerned with these matters in foreign countries, people of distinction and experience. It has been the admiration of very many people in this country who have no party political views but have a great deal of public spirit. It is one of the finest things that have been begun in this generation. The hon. Member for North Angus and Mearns (Mr. Thornton-Kemsley) said that it was a "political and economic achievement, a miracle of the age." For once I entirely agreed with him. In this sphere, it is something that will be remembered as a remarkable, imaginative effort, a bit of practical idealism brought in by the first Labour Government after the war. As a contribution to the solution of the difficulties which we then had and still have,


it must surely command the admiration even of right hon and hon. Gentlemen opposite. They have only to look at the amount of public spirited, imaginative work put into it by those who have served and still serve on the development corporations and in connection with them.
What have the Government been doing about it? They have been praising it on the one hand but, on the other, quietly stifling it as a social venture. I would remind the right hon. Gentleman of some of the tools that he has been using for the purpose. If he says, "I did not mean it," he has only to look at the reports to see it written on every page. I refer to the reports to the Minister by people who are, in effect—in one sense of the word, at any rate—serving under him, whose appointments, or the renewal of whose appointments, depends on his own Ministry. They are people writing factual and, in some ways, rather dry reports, and they are certainly not likely to overstate their complaints.
In an earlier intervention I quoted from a Report relating to Hemel Hempstead. These are the words:
…Government policy has prevented many desirable amenities and social attractions from being provided….
When one gets a development corporation going as far as that in a report, it means that what is written in that way is nothing to what it feels about it, and nothing, I am certain, to what those concerned say about the Government when they are talking to one another. That is not the kind of thing which is put in a report.
What have been the measures of pressure? They have been mainly financial. One measure has been applied to a great many other things in the country. It has been applied by the Minister of Housing and Local Government to prevent too many council houses being built. I refer to the rate of interest on advances. The advances to the development corporations have followed the same course—the right hon. Gentleman was good enough to give me the figures in answer to a Question the other day—as advances from the Public Works Loan Board to local authorities. It should be remembered that all these reports were written as at the end of March, 1957, when the Bank Rate had not yet been raised to 7 per cent. and when there happened to have been

a fall of ¼ or ½ per cent. in the interest rate. Yet they all refer to this matter.
Let us taken Stevenage as an example. The Stevenage Development Corporation is a large one. The town is in a fairly advanced state. The Corporation wrote a report in which it may be said to have looked back at the history of the matter. On page 362 appears the assertion that high interest rates and rents are obviously vitally connected. It is high interest rates which have caused high rents and which have largely accounted for the extra cost of housing. The figures given by Sir Humfrey Gale to the Public Accounts Committee were 70 per cent. because of interest rates—that was before the introduction of the 7 per cent. Bank Rate—and about 30 per cent. for building costs.
Whether it has been a matter of economies or of something else, there has been very little variation in the cost of house building since last year. In some places it has increased and in others it has decreased. It may have been a matter of cutting down standards. The Stevenage Report says in page 362:
A Development Corporation is not allowed to make good a loss on new house-building except from the pool of income produced from house rents. If it stops building new houses because of high costs, the town is loft incomplete, the requirement of creating a balanced community is not fulfilled and such population as there is in those circumstances cannot support the social, recreational and other facilities which residents expect.
The Report refers to the necessity of increasing rates because of higher rates of interest, and then says:
The Corporation regards this problem"—
that is, the problem of finance from the Government—
as one for your"—
that is, the right hon. Gentleman—
immediate and earnest consideration and feels that unless a national policy aimed at the reduction of interest rates and casts can be made to produce immediate results, steps must be taken to stabilise rents by other means so that the disparity between New Town rents and the rent level generally prevailing in the country is removed.
That is a complicated sentence, but what it comes to is that high interest rates in a new town necessarily mean very high rents and in the new towns rents have now reached such a level that the development corporations are being prevented from doing their jobs properly. We have exactly the same


position in Cwmbran which points out in its Report that it has to deal with industrial immigrants. Peterlee points out that although interest rates are so high, it is impossible to continue to demand higher rents in face of much lower rents in surrounding districts.
The right hon. Gentleman told me that an exclusive rent for a three-bedroom house in the new towns varies from 25s. to 39s. To that has to be added at least another 10s. for rates. Against that, the right hon. Gentleman has said that the average council house rent is between 14s. and 14s. 6d. The inevitable effect of high interest rates—taking into account subsidies—is to make rents so high that the corporations are unable to do their jobs. They must either slow their building programmes—and there is case after case of that in the Reports—or become limited towns merely for those who can afford to pay and not for the poorer sections of the population.
I agree with an hon. Member opposite who said that there should be middle-class people in the new towns. I want all classes to be in the new towns, but I do not want to cut out the unskilled people who are not getting very high pay and who have to live by the side of an industry, as, for instance, in Corby, Peterlee and other industrial places. I do not want those people to be cut out because the Government's financial arrangements are such that they cannot afford to pay the rents which have to be charged. If the right hon. Gentleman suggests a differential rent scheme, my reply is that in one form or another the corporations have tried every one of the Government's remedies. The real remedy is to revise all the financial arrangements.
It is clear that the Government have been telling the development corporations not to build too quickly. There is a reference to that in the Aycliffe Report and another in the Peterlee Report and there are vague references in the others. In fact, the corporations have been carrying out the general cutting policy enjoined by the Government and applying it to the new towns. That is part of what happens, but there is more. Another result with high rents and restriction of building at the same time, is that, as the Aycliffe Report puts it:

It will be noted that during the year the tempo of house building was appreciably reduced. This was the Corporation's contribution to the Ministry's expressed wish for financial relief…
This is financial relief in this social adventure which can make an invaluable contribution to a solution of the housing problem. The Aycliffe Report goes on:
…but in any case it was not thought prudent to borrow more than was strictly necessary and to pay 5¾ per cent. for the privilege.
The corporation now has to pay 6¾ per cent. for the privilege, and does not know how long that rate will operate. It does know that if it borrows at the moment, the loan will have to be over a period of sixty years during the whole of which time the corporation will have to pay 6¾ per cent. Is it any wonder that the corporations are being held up and that the tempo of house-building is decreasing and a social venture of which the Government approve verbally is being stifled by the Government's actions?
What about amenities? I wondered when the hon. Member for Hitchin (Mr. Madden) would refer to the swimming bath in Stevenage. The lack of a swimming bath there has been rightly attributed to Government policy. What do we mean by amenities? There are certain things which a development corporation ought to provide, but which the corporations are unable to provide because the Government will not allow them to do so at present, and so the inhabitants of Stevenage cannot have a swim.
There are other things which, as an hon. Member opposite put it, private enterprise could provide. At present cinemas do not pay private enterprise and there is a terrible shortage of cinemas, but beer pays and there is any number of "pubs". The brewers must surely annually return thanks to the Tory Party, for the first Measure which the Tory Party introduced when it came back to power was to provide for licensed premises in new towns. That, by the way, has been the Tory Party's one contribution, except for certain financial Bills at intervals, to legislation for new towns—"pubs" for the brewers and not the Carlisle type of "pubs".

Mr. Madden: I am certain that there would be much more outcry if the "pubs" were closed than there would be


about the lack of cinemas. The order of priorities has been that of public opinion.

Mr. Mitchison: I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman that people want a drink occasionally. Whether they get it from the brewers or under the Carlisle system probably does not make much practical difference; it is the same beer—or similar beer, at any rate.
The point is that if we leave it to private enterprise to provide the amenities it will provide what pays and will not provide what does not pay. Sometimes, some of the things that do not pay are really socially desirable; like the hon. Gentleman's swimming bath, but that was to come from the development corporation; like the unprofitable cinemas that do not get erected because they are unprofitable.
When I read these Reports I very strongly feel that nobody ought ever to get the Treasury too close to any social venture. There should be some sort of pretty solid buffer between the Treasury and that. What leads me to that conclusion is some of the niggardly accounting that one finds time after time all through these Reports, and I do no more than mention the points shortly.
One can do one of two things with a development corporation. One can either treat it as a commercial enterprise, and have it account accordingly, or one can treat it as a local authority, and have it account accordingly. What the right hon. Gentleman does is this. He makes the development corporation take the worst of both worlds. It is entirely inconsistant. Whenever there is anything to be gained from adopting one or other of the methods, he adopts it, and that is not fair to the people doing a public job of work.
Here are Crawley and Hemel Hempstead complaining that interest on capital before assets fructify is not capitalised in accordance with normal accounting practice. That is to say, they are not allowed to conduct their accounting as a normal commercial body. Again, Harlow
…would welcome discretion to follow normal commercial practice and borrow for short periods when rates are unfavourable.
It may be said that they should not be allowed to borrow short—that is a very arguable matter—but what is quite indefensible is to treat them one way at one

time and another way at another time, and to choose always the method that puts the maximum charge on the revenue of the corporation and, therefore, in the long run, takes it out of the pockets of the people who pay the rent for the houses. It should be borne in mind that although a considerable part of the income is factory income, the variable factor in the income is the rents that can be charged. Those are the things they look to when there is one of these little impositions put on them.
Garages have been mentioned by one hon. Member opposite. There are all sorts of others. I am not going into sewage, but the story there is, as befits sewage, a long and murky one and does not reflect any credit on the people who have to deal with these development corporations and their needs and accounts.
The right hon. Gentleman has been presented with a really fine proposition in these new towns; fine for the particular purpose of relieving the conurbations—or the special review areas if he likes that term better; and fine, too, as an experiment in forming communities of a thoroughly good character. What has he done with it? Absolutely nothing, except to praise on the one hand and to stifle on the other. Now he intends to stop doing anything more about it.
So much for that, but there is one other matter with which I must deal. I was really shocked the other day to hear the right hon. Gentleman say that the Government had changed their mind that the Tory Party, which pressed so vehemently, when the New Towns Bill was introduced, for the restoration of these new towns to local authorities, had now seen the light of reaction a little more clearly and was in favour of handing them over to an agency. And I was shocked to hear the Minister without Portfolio in another place, speaking for the Government, say that
…the Government propose to give the new agency power to sell property…This, of course, will be a slow process, one which will take time, but diversity of ownership is the ultimate aim."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 20th November, 1957; Vol. 206, c. 456.]
I would like the right hon. Gentleman to explain that statement, which to me appears to indicate that the object of the agencies is to sell to private enterprise, along with the statement he made,


apparently in a letter which was quoted in today's debate, that he was not really thinking about houses. What exactly is to happen about the houses if this does not apply to them? I earnestly hope that it does not, but let me also remind him, and hon. Members opposite that Crawley—and we had a speech from the hon. Member opposite in whose constituency Crawley is—Harlow, and a number of other local authorities concerned are beginning to protest, and I am quite sure that in a very short time the right hon. Gentleman will get a collective protest from the Local Government Associations.
I think the one principally concerned is the Urban District Councils Association, but it could come from others, too. Stevenage is protesting—they are all protesting, but hon. Gentlemen opposite who represent them do not protest. The councils say they are entirely opposed to the Minister's declaration of policy. They say that the assets and liabilities should be transferred to the democratically elected local authorities. And that, if the right hon. Gentleman forgets, is exactly what his party was saying when this very matter was under discussion during the Second Reading of the New Towns Bill and during the subsequent proceedings.
What has made him change his mind? What is it? What is the motive? What has true Conservatism to say in these circumstances? Does it leave democracy in favour of private enterprise? Or does it simply say, "Council houses, anyhow, are much too advanced for us. We cannot possibly regard housing as a social service. We regard only as a form of charity the council houses that have been built—and for which we lay claim to the credit when it suits us. We cannot have more. We cannot possibly hand back the new towns to local authorities—let them go back to private enterprise"?
That is to say, the fruits of the work of these men who have been working in these development corporations year after year, the fruits of the planning, and of the work that has been done by humbler people with a sense of the social value of what they are doing—all that is to be thrown away, sacrificed on the ideological alter of the Tory Party. We cannot have any more council houses—people

are not poor enough yet. Therefore, the houses and new towns will have to go back to private enterprise
What about betterment now? Who better themselves when the Tory Government is in office? Not the people who live in houses. They cannot afford to pay the rents. Not the people giving service to the new towns. Their efforts are to be wasted and handed over to the profit of others. No, they are the old friends of the Tory Party, those who can make money out of something. The first performance of this Government was to give the private brewers the extra turn they had not had before; and their last performance, if they have time for it, will be to give to other people engaged in speculating in property a chance to make money out of it, a chance to make something out of what was originally a very fine social venture. What a creditable record.
I will not say more, because all this is going to happen only when one or other of the new towns is nearly finished, and the right hon. Gentleman indicated the other day that it may be a matter of three or four years before that happens. By that time, in case right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite are in any uncertainty about it, they will not be in office and it will not matter a bit. They will not be able to introduce the legislation required for this purpose. I am certain that they will try to get it in earlier. They will advance an ingenious plea that there are so many children about that when they said a population of 60,000 they meant a population of 40,000 and more to come later. That is not the way I understand arithmetic. That is what is happening in Crawley.
I beg the right hon. Gentleman to think again about what he is doing. It is a pity to see a fine thing and so much public spirit stifled in its execution now, and handed over afterwards for a special purpose for which it certainly was not intended. It is hard on the people who live in these places and who are now gradually becoming new communities with their own community sense and finding an upthrust of courage in what they are doing, and in the knowledge of the fineness of it. It is hard that they are now going to lose all that at the hands of this Government who, whenever they see anything fine, particularly public property, go and sell it at once.

8.30 p.m.

The Minister of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Henry Brooke): I am sure that the whole House breathed a sigh of relief when it heard the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) say that he was not going into sewage tonight. We should all of us, the Government as well as his political friends, be deeply sorry were the hon. and learned Gentleman to "go down the drain." Though he hits hard, he maintains that spirit of good will in which we ought to discuss these new town matters. I wish to express my thanks to those hon. Members who have taken part in the debate, whether they have been critical or friendly, destructive or constructive, because everybody spoke with knowlege.
No wiser word was said than when the noble Lady the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Viscountess Davidson) stressed the importance of more people taking an interest in the new towns. It is somewhat disappointing that during the six or seven hours of this debate there have been few hon. Members in the Chamber except those who are, or were at some time, intimately connected with new towns in their divisions. I should welcome a wider interest from hon. Members on both sides of the House in these very human problems which the new towns and their inhabitants have to face.
During the ten months in which I have held office I have visited nine out of the 12 new towns for which I am responsible. I hope that before long I shall have completed the whole dozen. I have been received with great courtesy by members of the new town corporations, many of whom differ from me politically. It has been a fascinating experience, and I am quite sure that all hon. Members who have the chance to see what is really being done in the new towns and do so, and do not simply read the blue books about it, will never regret their decision.
This debate has proved again the interest of those hon. Members who represent new towns. I speak with diffidence about the new towns in Scotland, because, clearly, the hon. Members who represent them know more about them than. I am in a position to know. The hon. and learned Member for Kettering represents a new town, Corby, and the speeches of my hon. Friends the

Members for Hitchin (Mr. Maddan), for Horsham (Mr. Gough), and for Hemel Hempstead proved how intimately they have studied the problems and affairs of the new towns in their constituencies.
The hon. and learned Member for Kettering picked up a point made earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for North Angus and Mearns (Mr. Thornton-Kemsley), who suggested that there were 2 million people to be moved out from the big towns. In fact, if we are talking in this context of new towns and town development expansion for the relief of overcrowding in the big cities, I think that he took too large a figure. It may be true that there are 2 million people who will need to move out from towns of one size or another in the whole of Great Britain, and I think that that was the context in which the figure was originally given last year, but the figure I normally take, and which has been the figure given in annual reports of my Department, is that from the big cities of England and Wales there is an overspill problem of about 1,100,000.

Mr. Sparks: Is the right hon. Gentleman taking into consideration the recommendations of the Greater London Plan, because that figure was very much exceeded for Greater London alone, to say nothing of the other great cities?

Mr. Brooke: The hon. Gentleman really is incorrect. I am giving the latest figure which I would be prepared to stand by. I think that he and I would probably agree that anything must be an estimate; that nobody can forecast the future with certainty, the population trends or natural migration, or anything like that. I put it to the House that if we take the figure of 1,100,000 as the overspill figure from the big cities of England and Wales, we shall not be far out.
That figure was given about a couple of years ago and it would be somewhat smaller today. I think that anyone who goes around the new towns and sees them for himself, as I have done, will be struck more than anything else by their fascinating variety. Here we have a number of sites chosen for new towns, and certainly the sites differ in some respects, sometimes undulating, sometimes flat, sometimes the population virtually non-existent and sometimes, as at Hemel Hempstead, there is a borough there already with a


substantial population. Nevertheless, they have all developed in their individual ways, and they owe that greatly to the initiative and imagination of members of the corporations and the chief officials of the corporations who have been responsible for their development.
Almost without exception, one can be impressed by the excellence of the master plan originally drawn up, according to which they have all been developed, and the interesting architectural treatment throughout the new towns. I know that the House will support me—because this has already been said from both sides—when I say that we should not close this Second Reading debate without my having an opportunity, on behalf of the Government and, I hope, the whole House, of expressing heartfelt thanks to the members of the corporations, to their staffs, senior and junior, and to all those who have had a hand in this intensely interesting development.
I should like to mention to the House, so far as the new towns in England and Wales are concerned, the need to establish a system by which members of the new town corporations are appointed for a period of two years at a time. I know that at one time there were complaints that the appointments were not sufficiently continuous and that there was too great an element of uncertainty. I hope that the House will approve that this two years' basis of appointment should be general. In one sense, we are half-way through. In another sense we are near the end in some cases and near the beginning in others. Aycliffe and Crawley are within striking distance of completion according to present figures. Hemel Hempstead is going on that way. At the other end, so far as England is concerned. Basildon and Peterlee have still a very long way to go and it will take many years. The same, I understand, is true of the Scottish new towns.
This Bill will provide for an increase from £250 million to £300 million in the advances that can be made from the Exchequer towards new towns' expenditure. It looks to me as though, before the present new towns are completed, the total expenditure required will be of the order of £375 million, so I think that there is no doubt at all that this is

an interim new towns finance Bill, and that, apart from everything else, the House will have another opportunity before the end of this Parliament of looking at the financial provision for the new towns.
The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland said, in answer to a question, that the Government had decided—I can speak only for England and Wales and I will not trespass on his ground—that no more new towns should be started. It is the view of the Government that an investment of about £375 million is approximately the maximum amount that should be devoted at present to this new town purpose. When the hon. and learned Member for Kettering says that it is unreasonable to propose that new towns should be built by any agency other than the Government because the New Towns Act is on the Statute Book, I must remind him that the Housing Subsidies Act, 1956, is also on the Statute Book and that it gives statutory authority for the payment of Exchequer subsidies at, broadly speaking, the new town rate to local authorities who decide to go ahead with new towns themselves.

Mr. Mitchison: That was never intended.

Mr. Brooke: I say, in particular, to the hon. Member for Small Heath (Mr. Wheeldon) that he put on record the difference of outlook in this matter between two Socialist-controlled authorities, Birmingham Corporation and the London County Council. Birmingham Corporation is angry with me because I have not offered to authorise the building of a Government new town for Birmingham's overspill population and have suggested that if Birmingham Corporation thinks that new town development is required it should consider embarking upon one. The London County Council has approached me spontaneously for permission to go forward with an L.C.C. new town and I have granted that permission provided that a suitable site can be found.

Mr. Mitchison: Does not the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that Socialist and non-Socialist authorities regard it as the Minister's job to designate new towns and to find the money, and that when they are deprived of what they think are their


right facilities they naturally react differently? People always do if you torture them.

Mr. Brooke: Perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman will hammer that point out with his political friends on the London County Council. It has been indicated to me that, if suitable land can be found, the Council will welcome the opportunity.

Mr. A. Evans: I am sure that the Minister would like to get this matter straight and clear. Does he not understand that the Council of the County of London asked him to use his good offices to provide the necessary capital, as a condition of considering the new towns project, and that the right hon. Gentleman declined to give the undertaking that he would help the Council with capital finance?

Mr. Brooke: I did not decline in those terms. What I said to the Council was that I could not undertake that money from the Public Works Loan Board would necessarily be available at P.W.L.B. rates for an L.C.C. new town, but it is definitely the desire of the Council to go ahead, as it also appears to be the desire of the Socialist-controlled Manchester City Council to go ahead because that Council has put in a planning application—[HON. MEMBERS: "Which the Minister has refused."]—which is clearly designed to enable it to carry out new town development on new towns scale as a local authority enterprise.

Mrs. Joyce Butler: Would the right hon. Gentleman say whether he has considered the financial problem of conurbations like Middlesex, where a number of hard-pressed local authorities are considering the possibility of having a new town but have no financial resources to finance it? The county council has no power to assist them and, so far, has refused to try to obtain such powers.

Mr. Brooke: So far as I am aware, I have not as yet had any approach from Middlesex. If the Middlesex authorities do collectively make to me a case for a new town, I can assure them that it will be given very careful consideration. The initiative must come from them, as it has come to me from London County Council.
To revert to the main subject of this Bill, the existing new Towns, I am very happy to see that by common consent it is agreed that the new towns have been a worthwhile experiment. I have no doubt whatever on that score. As I said the other day in the House, we were faced with a tragic housing situation at the end of the last war. The new towns were a bold experiment; they have been carried forward vigorously by Governments of different colours and the people in the new towns are happy to be there. I say that with confidence, because the amount of movement out of the new towns is astonishingly small. When this conception was first formed and outlined, many people feared that, although it might be exciting in the first instance, people who had moved out from a big city would find their new surroundings alien and uncongenial to them and drift away. Without exception the new towns corporations report to me that the people who have come to their new towns want to stay in them and the drift away is virtually negligible.
Of course, it has been a very expensive experiment. I have given the capital figures. There are also grave deficiencies of revenue. On the General Revenue Account of the England and Wales corporations, in the aggregate there is a deficit of £1 million, and on what is called the Ancillary Undertakings Revenue Account there is a deficit of £2½ million. We also have to take into account that housing subsidies and grants have been received by the new towns corporations from the Exchequer to an extent of £5 million already.
So the figures are large and those who optimistically hope that in a very short time the deficits will be wiped out and the new towns become, as it were, profit-earning, are looking through rosy spectacles. Nevertheless, my hope and expectation is that those deficits can be worked off over the years. Unquestionably, in an experiment like this there has to be unremunerative expenditure in the first instance. As the town reaches completion, as its centre comes into existence and commercial properties spring up, the revenue is likely to increase. I have every hope that the position over the years will become substantially more favourable.
The hon. and learned Member for Kettering attacked various rules and


regulations relating to the financing of these new towns and suggested that they ought to be allowed to charge interest on non-remunerative capital expenditure to capital for a time, and so on. I would point out to him that these financial rules and regulations were not laid down by a Conservative Government, but by a Labour Government.

Mr. Mitchison: The right hon. Gentleman must be fair about that. They are now paying 7 per cent. for their money, and that is reflected in the rents. What happens when this is done is that the Treasury saves money and the inhabitants of the new towns have to pay higher rents.

Mr. Brooke: Let us both be fair about this. The hon. and learned Gentleman was attacking me because of certain financial practices which he said were unfair to the new towns, and I pointed out that those practices were laid down long before there was a Conservative Government. He is now turning to the question of high interest rates. Of course, high interest rates are hard on everybody. They are hard on the hon. and learned Member if he has an overdraft. No one who is in the banking business welcomes high money rates, when the colossal capital depreciation which high money rates mean is taken into account.
Nevertheless, it would be quite wrong to insulate either the new towns or local authorities or any other good causes from high money rates and the credit squeeze. Indeed, the policy pursued by the Opposition, when they were in power, of maintaining artificially low money rates, was one of the major causes of the inflation of the 1940s which ended in the devaluation of the £.
The hon. and learned Member spoke of the effect of high interest rates on rents. There is no doubt whatever that rents in the new towns are high. They are high not only because of high interest rates, but because of the fact that all the building has been done in post-war years, whereas the majority of local authorities had the opportunity to build in pre-war years much of their building was, therefore, done much more cheaply and they have an opportunity to pool their rents which the new towns have not.
The fact remains that there are waiting lists for houses in all the new towns. Moreover, people are not moving out of the new towns. When hon. Members suggest that this means that the children must be going short of food, that seems to contrast strangely with what was said by the right hon. Member for East Stirlingshire (Mr. Woodburn), when he paid tribute to the specially healthy populations in the new towns. In fact, anybody who goes round the new towns must rejoice to see how well all the children are.

Mr. Mitchison: Since the right hon. Gentleman attaches such importance to waiting lists, could he tell us of any of the large towns—not new towns—which has not an unsatisfied waiting list of applicants for houses?

Mr. Brooke: I am referring to people who want to move into the new towns and who may be paying much lower rents at present. Aycliffe and Peterlee are outstanding examples. In Durham rents have always been low and the amenities in the pit villages have in no way been satisfactory.

Mr. Ernest Popplewell: The amenities in the pit villages have been shocking.

Mr. Brooke: That is the point that I was making. Domestically, the pit villages cannot offer anything like the amenities of the new towns of Aycliffe and Peterlee. I was pointing out that despite the fact that there was this wide gap between the rent of the ordinary colliery house in a Durham pit village and the far higher rent of a house in Peterlee or Aycliffe, nevertheless, the latter have waiting lists of people who want to go there, primarily because now that wages are high the wives say that the time has come for them to have the sort of kitchens which the new towns can provide.
That is the complete answer to the Opposition when they say that these rents are excessive. It is also the effective answer when they speak as they did of the housing situation in the country. The fact is that that situation is far better than it was six years ago, and hundreds and thousands of people have been able to obtain these up-to-date amenities thanks to the housing policy of a Conservative Government.

Mr. James Griffiths: I wonder whether the Minister would care to tell the House who built these houses in Durham and South Wales? Was it not the private enterprise coal owners?

Mr. Brooke: If we go back over the centuries we might have quite a number of things to say to each other. Let us now concentrate upon the present and the future, and let us be profoundly thankful that the men and women, and particularly the children, are having the opportunity to grow up in conditions that we want to see. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am grateful for the cheers from the Opposition side for the housing policy being pursued by the Government.
It was arranged that the debate should stop at nine o'clock and there are two or three more things which I want to say about the new towns. I thoroughly agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham who would like to see the time come when the word "new" could be dropped, and when these towns would be normal towns. The last thing that he wished was that they should be freak towns. Everybody, regardless of party, has recognised that one of the dangers of the new towns might be that they would remain permanently one-class towns. Nobody believes that a one-class town is a wholly normal town. I am grateful to the efforts which the corporations have been making to secure a middle-class development, to get privately-built houses put up and to establish real variety throughout the town.
One hon. Member said that little progress had been made in that respect. That is not true of certain of the new towns. In Crawley, already about 800 privately-built houses have gone up, and I believe that land for another 700 such houses has been made available. Other new towns, such as Welwyn, have made some progress in that direction, and I hope that all the corporations will pay increasing attention to that need.
In the matter of industrial development the new towns generally—certainly those in the South of England—have been reasonably fortunate. Some have more industry than they require. I know that Peterlee and Basildon would like more than they have, and I hope that in time the additional industry required will go there. In particular, I believe that to achieve the variety and diversity which

the new towns require we should welcome more office development there. Hitherto, there has been disappointingly little. It is true that one firm has gone to Hemel Hempstead; McAlpines, I think, have gone to Hemel Hempstead. There is a branch of the D.S.I.R. established at Stevenage, and there is another building for fuel research there under construction. The Meteorological Office is moving to Bracknell.
Everything of that kind will strengthen the social structure of the new towns. I am convinced that a number of large firms could help themselves as well as the country by decentralising some of their office work to the new towns. I trust that there would be universal approval that that is the sort of further development which the new towns at this stage require.
The hon. and learned Member for Kettering spoke about amenities in the new towns. Certainly, we are nowhere near what we should desire in this respect. The churches have done magnificently in the new towns.

Mr. Leslie Hale: And the brewers.

Mr. Brooke: The brewers have, no doubt, been meeting a public need. In all the new towns I have visited, nobody has expressed the least regret that they are ordinary "pubs" instead of Socialist "pubs."
The hon. and learned Gentleman said that we were quietly stifling the new towns. In fact, we are continuing to build in the new towns at the rate of 9,000 or 10,000 houses a year. That will go on, and the passing of this Bill will facilitate the process. The hon. and learned Gentleman asked about the future of the new towns. That will need to be dealt with by subsequent Bills, separate from this, and I have already given information to Parliament on that matter.
The one suggestion which I wish to counter now is the entirely false allegation that if the new towns are transferred to a new management agency, that would be undemocratic. The suggestion is, apparently, that we can have democracy only if the local authority owns the whole town.

Mr. Lindgren: We cannot have it under Tory Government.

Mr. Brooke: I have never heard any suggestion that cities like Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield are undemocratic, and it certainly is not true that the corporations own the whole town in those places. Our purpose is that the local authorities should have exactly the same powers and responsibilities and opportunities as in any other town or city.

Mr. Hamilton: What about the rates?

Mr. Brooke: The ownership of the whole town is not a local authority function, and the experience we have had in the last ten years leads us to think that it would be a mistake if we left the 1946 Act unamended. In due course, the Government will be putting their proposals before Parliament. Legislation will be required and all these matters can be amply debated then.

Mr. Mitchison: There is an apparent contradiction at present between what was said by the Minister without Portfolio in another place, who said, in effect, that all the assets and liabilities would be handed over to an agency for the ultimate purpose of sale, and the letter which the right hon. Gentleman appears to have written to his hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr. Gough), in which, apparently, the right hon. Gentleman said that that did not apply to houses. Houses are very important.

Mr. Brooke: There is no inconsistency here at all. The legislation, when it appears, will show that the assets are to be transferred to a new agency, which will have the ordinary duties of prudent management and will have also the duty to take into account the interests of all who live in the new towns. It will have to retain or sell, but one of its objects will be to try to ensure over the years the diversity of ownership which I believe to be an essential characteristic of a normal town.
What I said in writing to my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham was that it seemed to me improbable that the agency would find a demand from private investors for the house property, because, if the house property were thus sold, the subsidy would disappear. What I had primarily in mind when I spoke of disposal of some of the assets from time to time was the industrial property, the

commercial and shop property, thereby, as I said, securing the diversity of ownership which I believe to be essential.
My last word is this. I am grateful for the promise that the Bill will receive a Second Reading without a Division, despite our differences. I will not suggest that party politics do not come into new town discussions at all. Do not let us be hypocritical about that. We all hold our party views. Without exception, we all wish the new towns success. I would like to see tonight a situation where the House comes together just as the individual members of the boards of the new town corporations come together, with different backgrounds and firmly holding their individual political beliefs. Yet, in every case they have joined together as a team with one object, which is to build a good new town. They have built a good new town. They are co-operating most admirably with me. I am grateful to them and so, I believe, are the inhabitants of the new towns, whom we all wish to serve.

Mr. S. Silverman: I know that the Minister had many points to answer, but I endeavoured to remind the Government of one aspect which is of great importance and quite relevant to the general national problem with which the new towns policy is concerned. The right hon. Gentleman did not find time to deal with that problem. I know that it is not his personal responsibility, but he is the only representative of the Government here. He was once Financial Secretary to the Treasury and he knows something about the problems. As his colleagues are not here to help him, out of courtesy will he not deal shortly with the point I put to the Government?

Mr. Brooke: I find difficulty in dealing with the hon. Gentleman's point. I appreciate his feeling. He is fearful that new house property is being brought into existence in new towns all over the country while the existing house property in North-East Lancashire is decaying.

Mr. Silverman: I am sorry I did not make myself clear. I will not make another speech. What I am concerned with is the total failure of the Government to do anything for North-East Lancashire, having declared it to be a development area. I pointed out in my speech that this has led and is still leading to a


continuous drain away of population from this area, which must, if it continues, stultify—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Charles MacAndrew): Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman is trying to make a second speech.

Mr. Silverman: I tried to get an answer to the first speech.

Mr. Brooke: I will certainly draw the hon. Member's speech to the attention of my right hon. Friends who deal with these matters. I cannot overlook the fact that there is, I understand, criticism from some of his right hon. Friends who represent the Stoke-on-Trent area of the fact that industry is at the moment moving from the Stoke-on-Trent area to North-East Lancashire despite the fact that unemployment is higher in Stoke-on-Trent than in North-East Lancashire.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Colonel J. H. Harrison.]

Committee upon Monday next.

Orders of the Day — NEW TOWNS [MONEY]

Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 84 (Money Committees).—[Queen's Recommendation signified.]

[Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to increase the amount of the advances which may be made to development corporations under section twelve of the New Towns Act, 1946, it is expedient to authorise any increase, attributable to the provisions of the said Act of the present Session raising to three hundred million pounds the limit of two hundred and fifty million pounds imposed in respect of such advances by subsection (1) of the said section twelve (as amended by the New Towns Act, 1955), in the sums which, under or by virtue of the said Act of 1946, section two of the Licensed Premises in New Towns Act, 1952, or section sixty-eight of the Licensing Act, 1953, are to be or may be issued out of the Consolidated Fund, defrayed out of moneys provided by Parliament, raised by borrowing, remitted, or paid into the Exchequer.—[Mr. Powell.]

9.10 p.m.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: I have no intention of delaying the Committee for more than a minute or two, but I want to put on record my protest against the manner in which the Minister failed to deal with the point which I raised in the discussion on Second Reading. My objection was to the granting of this money to the Government at all until they were prepared to deal with the problem I had in mind. It really will not do for the Minister to make cheap debating points about the movement of industry from one part of the country to another part of the country.
We are saying that the Government ought not at this moment to spend £50 million of new money, added to the £250 million they have spent already, if they continue to allow the problem for which the money is being spent to be aggravated by promoting, by their neglect, a further flow of population from these areas to the big towns, which has the effect of frustrating the purpose for which the money is being spent. Unless the Government really bring their mind to bear on the fact that these are two sides of the same problem, they are simply not fit to be trusted with the money at all.
It is no good turning on the tap to take surplus population out of a so-called conurbation if we do not turn off the tap through which the flow of population comes from the other areas. To spend a lot of money on creating new social capital in new towns while the Government continue by their policy to waste the social capital that they already have, is the politics of either the Conservative Party or any other lunatic asylum.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolution to be reported upon Monday next.

Orders of the Day — PUBLIC WORKS LOANS [REMISSION OF DEBT]

Resolution reported,
That, for the purpose of any Act of the present Session relating to local loans, it is expedient to authorise the remission of unpaid balances of principal and all arrears of interest due to the Public Works Loan Commissioners in respect of loans to Southam Works Housing Society Limited and South Staffordshire Mines Drainage Commissioners.

Resolution agreed to.

Orders of the Day — PUBLIC WORKS LOANS BILL

Considered in Committee.

[Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

Clause 1.—(GRANTS FOR PUBLIC WORKS.)

9.16 p.m.

Mr. E. G. Willis: I beg to move, in page 1, line 6, after "loans", to insert:
at rates of interest not exceeding three per cent.

The Chairman: It might be for the convenience of the Committee if we take with this Amendment the other two Amendments on the Paper, namely, in page 1, line 7, after "Commissioners", insert:
on such conditions that no interest payment shall be at a rate of interest higher than the Bank Rate in force at the time of that payment.
In line 8, at end insert:
Provided that loans granted to a local authority for the purpose of enabling or assisting that local authority to advance money under section four of the Housing Act, 1949, shall bear interest at a rate not exceeding three per cent. per annum.
We can have Divisions on them separately, if required.

Mr. G. Lindgren: That will suit us, Sir Charles.

Mr. Willis: I noticed in the Press last night that the Treasury told the Southwark Trades Council that 2½ per cent. was a very satisfactory rate of interest for depositors in the Post Office, and I thought that the Financial Secretary might save us discussing these Amendments by saying that 3 per cent. was a satisfactory rate for local authorities to pay the Public Works Loan Board, but apparently, he has no such intention.
What has been happening in the period since the war regarding money lent to the authorities by the Public Works Loan Board? I want to look at this matter specifically in relation to Scotland, and no doubt my hon. Friends will do the same for England. When we examine what has been happening, we find that until 1951 the overall rate of interest for all outstanding capital debts of the local authorities fell steadily until 1950–51. Since 1950–51 there has,

year by year, been a steady increase in the overall rate of interest paid by the local authorities in respect of their outstanding capital debts. That has come about as a result of the increasing cost of borrowing money.
Taking Scotland as a whole, I find that the increase between 1951 and 1956, owing to the gradually increasing rate of interest for borrowing, has been ·5 or ·6 per cent. In the City of Edinburgh, part of which area I have the honour and privilege of representing, the overall rate of interest for all Edinburgh Corporation capital debts had risen by ·76 per cent. by May, 1956, and the Bank Rate had not really commenced to rise steeply until the middle of 1955. Then it began to go up from 4 per cent. until now it is 6¾ per cent. Therefore, it is fairly modest to assume that by this time the overall rate of interest would have increased by 1 per cent. That is a fairly modest estimate of the increasing burden of debt which local authorities have to bear as a result of the policy pursued by the Government.
I want now to look at the effects of this upon Scotland and various other places. In 1956 Edinburgh had an outstanding capital debt of £38 million. A variation of 1 per cent. means an increase in cost to Edinburgh of £380,000 per annum. If this is spread over the ratepayers it means an increase in the rates of over 1s. in the £. I know that hon. Gentlemen opposite will argue that most of it is in respect of housing and should be paid by the tenants of houses. In Edinburgh £26 million of that £38 million was in respect of housing, and an overall increase of 1 per cent. means an increased burden to be borne in respect of housing of £260,000. The result of this alone means an increase in rents of £8 10s a year.
I am sorry that the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland is not present. He has been in the House all clay, and I appreciate that he wants to go away now, but we might have had another representative of the Scottish Office to listen to this debate, because we are dealing with important matters.
The Government told us for weeks in the Scottish Standing Committee and in the House, "You will have no problem at all if only you spread the increased costs over the houses built before the


war." Day after day for months we listened to that argument in the Scottish Standing Committee. I repeat that on my modest assessment of the situation the increase means an addition of £8 10s. a year to the rent of every house. That increase is not justified by an increase in the cost of maintenance, but results solely from the Government's lending policy.
I also represent the small borough of Musselburgh, which has an outstanding debt of £2¾ million. An overall increase of 1 per cent. means 3s. in the £ addition to the Musselburgh rates if it is spread over the ratepayers. However, most of the sum is in respect of housing, and I calculate that the increase adds £10 per year to the rent of every municipal house there.
In May, 1956, Scotland's total capital debt was £531·5 million. An overall increase of 1 per cent. means an increase in interest charges for Scotland of £5·3 million, over £1 per head of the population of Scotland. Thus a man with a wife and three children has more than £5 a year to pay for no other reason than the Government's policy in respect of public authority interest rates.
At that same date, £402·5 million of Scotland's total capital debt was in respect of housing. The overall increase of 1 per cent. results in an increase of £9 per year for every municipal house in Scotland, including those built before the war. It is not only an onerous burden upon the people but a ridiculous state of affairs.
The Government's justification for increasing the Bank Rate is that it will restrict expenditure, but all this capital expenditure is already restricted and controlled through the Government having to approve local authority schemes. In other words, the whole machinery of control exists and is being used every day. Hundreds of civil servants are engaged in controlling expenditure by local authorities. Any restrictions in capital expenditure required in the local government sector of the economy can be achieved, as is done every day, without interest rates of this sort.
There is no justification for the increase in the rate of interest. There might be an argument in the case of private enterprise where there is no special machinery of control, but every Id, of local government expenditure is already controlled.

Why, then, should we have this unnecessary duplication and this unnecessary burden of debt which people will have to bear for a long time?
The present housing position is fantastic. In reply to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Leith (Mr. Hoy), on 29th October, the Minister said that for a house costing £1,500, at present rates of borrowing, £4,980 would be paid in interest. What possible justification can there be for that? Surely there can be nothing more crazy, more stupid outside a lunatic asylum as the approach that one pays for men to build a house, prepare materials and acquire the land, £1,500, and for borrowing the money nearly £5,000. That is the economics of the madhouse.

Mr. Lindgren: The Tory Government.

Mr. A. E. Cooper: Rubbish.

Mr. Willis: The hon. Member says, "Rubbish." Is there any justification for paying the moneylenders £5,000 and the men who build the house £1,500?

Mr. Cooper: The rubbish I was referring to was that talked by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren), who should know a great deal more about local government than appears to be the case.

Mr. Willis: I take it that the hon. Member agrees that this is a crazy situation. It is mad that we should pay that enormous sum in order to borrow the money with which to build a house costing £1,500.
The Government announced that they expected to build 300,000 houses a year and that in two years' time they would reduce that to 240,000. In doing so, the Government clearly said that they had the men and the materials available to build 300,000 houses. If we have the men, materials and the will to do it, need we pay all that interest? In the twentieth century, do we lack the ingenuity to plan our economy so that we can get the job done without placing that intolerable burden of debt, not only on this generation, but on generations yet unborn? My grandchildren will still be paying for this debt which will be created by Government policy.
I could say much more about this subject, but I know several of my hon. Friends want to speak and I shall not


delay them. I do not expect the Government to say that they will accept the Amendment.

Mr. William Hamilton: Why not.

Mr. Willis: Because I know the Government too well.

Mr. William Ross: The Scottish Office has arrived in the person of the Joint Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Pentlands (Lord John Hope).

Mr. Willis: However, there is a problem to be tackled. The Financial Secretary has a great reputation for his intellectual capacity. I do not quarrel with that. My quarrel with him is similar to that of G. K. Chesterton with George Bernard Shaw, namely, that at times he is all intellect and very little humanity. Surely he realises that this ought to be looked at.
If the Government cannot accept this Amendment tonight, would they not consider that it is time that this rather stupid and certainly impossible position was examined? It is the method by which use the control of credit to control our material resources that has brought about this stupid situation. Is it not time that some committee or commission looked into it so that we can devise a policy which will avoid these consequences.

9.30 p.m.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: I beg to second the Amendment and to support the arguments put forward with such a wealth of detail, facts and figures by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis). He has certainly voiced the greatest grievance of Scottish local authorities, whether they are rich, like Edinburgh, or just small authorities that are now trying to face up to their problems. They are all faced with the problems created by increased rates of interest. There is hardly a local authority in Scotland that is not sending its representations to its Member and calling for a reduction in those rates.
These representations are not coming only from Labour-controlled authorities. One of the strongest representations I have ever had on this subject comes from

the Town Council of Ayr, usually represented in these matters by the hon. and gallant Member (Sir T. Moore). That council was so dissatisfied with the lack of representation from its Member that it even sent urgent messages to those of us who represent other parts of the county. It is typical that the strongest representations come from Tory-dominated councils, which, when faced with the hard facts of raising money at high rates of interest, realise that the financial policy of a Tory Government is making things quite impossible.
The resolution that was passed by the Ayr Town Council demanded a reduction in the rate of interest "forthwith", and in supporting this Amendment tonight we on this side are trying our best to express the point of view of town councils in all parts of Scotland. I am not so sure that this 3 per cent. rate we are giving should not be 2½ per cent. Why should Edinburgh, for example, have to pay 6¾ per cent. and Damascus have to pay only 2½ per cent.? These figures may astonish the House, but we read recently of a Soviet loan to local authorities in Syria, in Egypt and in India at an interest rate of 2½ per cent. Surely the credit of a great and prosperous city like Edinburgh should stand higher than that of Damascus or Cairo, and we want to know what has become of the £ when, apparently, it stands lower than the rouble. By putting forward this argument that the interest rate should be 3 per cent., we are indeed taking a very moderate line.
It is true that this means heavy increases on the rent, £10 a year was one estimate given by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East, and 1s. on the rates. Sometimes the Government try to play off the ratepayer against the tenant of a house. But when money is borrowed at the high rate of 6¾ per cent. for water schemes or roads or other local government schemes, the ratepayer is mulcted in the same way. So we have the steady increase in rates which makes the problems of those administering local government in Scotland almost impossible of solution.
We are trying to help the Government. They tell us that to deal with the financial situation caused by inflation we need a reduction in Government expenditure. I assume that on the £300 million for which


borrowing sanction is given by the terms of this Bill, there will be an approximate rate of interest of £20 million. Were this Amendment accepted that figure would be reduced to £9 million, so that we are trying to help to reduce expenditure both by the Government and by local authorities. I should have thought that would appeal to the hon. Gentleman who is always telling us that the urgent and clamouring need of the moment is to reduce public expenditure.
Here we are trying to help him with his financial problem, but we are not sufficiently optimistic to expect much support for this Amendment from the benches opposite. Last week my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) talked about Scrooge. The hon. Gentleman does not come here tonight in the character of Scrooge, but rather in the character of Shylock, whose object was not so much to increase interest rates as to kill his enemy. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman looks upon local government as his enemy, but he is doing his best to kill any real progressive activities by local authorities.
We have strong reasons for pressing this Amendment on the Minister, and in so doing we are voicing the views of all the local authorities. I do not wish to give details about the local authorities in my area because other hon. Members wish to speak, but we are voicing the point of view of every town council, every county council and every city council in Scotland when we do our best to call attention to the immediate necessity for a reduction in interest rates.

Mr. Ross: Anyone who looks at the Notice Paper will appreciate that it is a long time since we had an Amendment to discuss which is so clear and so implicit or so practical, or one that would cause so much heart-warming among Scottish local authorities towards the Treasury were it accepted. It is a simple Amendment to ensure that the loans under the Public Works Loan Board, instead of being at 6¾ per cent. interest—and who knows what will happen in the next few weeks?—be in future, or during the lifetime of this Bill, no more than 3 per cent.
If this Amendment were accepted, the immediate consequences would be to reduce the cost to local authorities of

the houses that they are building, the hospitals they are putting up, the clinics, the transport which they buy for their departments, the water schemes which are involved in much of the progressive work, whether in relation to the old towns or the new towns, and the land drainage which has to take place throughout the counties and towns of Scotland, England and Wales. It would reduce the cost of all these.
We are told that the principal aim of the Government is to reduce costs; that this is the real way to end inflation. I should not be at all surprised if the Financial Secretary told us that the reason we must have 6¾ per cent. at the moment, and it may be 7 per cent. next month, is the same reason, that this is part of the battle against inflation. The speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) has shown that that is complete nonsense.
If it is necessary in other fields to have a high Bank Rate, the purpose of which is to prevent capital projects going on, the one field in which it is completely unnecessary is that of local government expenditure. Even if a local authority wishes to spend its own money, or to raise money for which there is no Government grant, it can be stopped by the Department of Health for Scotland, with the Treasury behind it. Every single item that has been listed, whether housing, hospitals, or anything else, first has to be authorised by the Department in Scotland, and, in the case of England and Wales, by Whitehall.
So, if the Government seek to limit the amount of work that is being done by local authorities, there is a simple way to do it without financially crippling them. That is what is happening to the local authorities: they are being financially crippled; and I certainly hope that the Financial Secretary will give us a favourable answer tonight.
It is something which every local authority, certainly throughout Scotland, wants, including, as my hon. Friend said, that Tory of Tory towns, Ayr, Sir Charles, in which both you and I were born. It is little wonder that the hon. Member who represents that town is not in his place, because he knows how the council of that burgh feels about it. It feels even worse about this high rate of interest of the Public Works Loan


Board than it does about the loss of the Royal Scots Fusiliers. I am sure that it is because he is ashamed of what the Government are doing, and that it is probably because of inside information that they will not accept our Amendment, that he decided not show his face here tonight.
In other parts of Ayrshire, we are equally concerned. One of my own areas, Galston, a mining area, has been having correspondence with the Secretary of State for Scotland on this very point. I do not want to weary the Committee with the full correspondence, but I think that there are one or two extracts from this letter which should be read. It is all very well talking about how we feel, and the local authorities feeling this way and that, but when we get the actual words of this local authority I think that they are worth attending to.
The Town Clerk of Galston wrote to the Secretary of State, Scottish Home Department, on 14th October and, among other things, said this:
It is evident, and all local authorities are aware, that the most economic thing to do"—
in the present circumstances, with this crippling interest rate—
would be to stop building. This, of course, they cannot do.
Any hon. Member opposite who knows anything about housing in Scotland, where there are still 250,000 houses, on a survey made two years ago by the Secretary of State, to be demolished, will realise that a local authority cannot accept having to stop building; it must build.
9.45 p.m.
The Town Clerk goes on to say:
The rise in the Bank Rate is not caused by the housing problem and should not reflect so directly or so harshly on the present day housing position especially when commitments are entered into for a period of up to 60 years. To proceed on these lines is just financial suicide apart from being absolutely absurd. The only possible solution from a purely impartial point of view is, in consideration of my Council, to have a reduction in the existing rate.
That is what we propose tonight.
What did this local authority get from the Department of Health in answer to this letter? It got:
Your Council's representations have been carefully considered and I have to explain that in the opinion of the Secretary of State the Government's monetary policy must be

settled in a wider context than that of housing alone. The current high rate of interest is one result of the measures approved by the Government in the national interest….
It is not just one result; it is a result of the measures the Government have taken between 1951 and 1957 that have led us into this mess.
The letter goes on:
A special concession concerning the rate of interest payable on housing loans could not but fail to weaken the impact of the Government's policy.
Out of fairness, I should read the local council's reply. I will read it out fully.

Mr. Willis: Is it in miners' language?

Mr. Ross: It says:
Dear sirs,
I refer to your communication of 12th current. On behalf of my Council, I am instructed to reply as follows, viz. `specious nonsense'.
Yours faithfully.
We do not believe in wasting words in Scotland.
I sincerely hope that Government supporters who have at heart the well-being of local authorities and of those whose comfort and happiness, and whose possibilities of a reasonably decent life, are dependent upon local authority work in education, housing and other such matters, will appreciate the great barrier of the present high rates of interest. Responsibility lies with their Government and with the Treasury. They have an opporunity tonight of supporting us in asking for a reduction of those rates of interest to no more than 3 per cent., and I hope that they will accept that opportunity.

Mr. John McKay: It is a great pity that this matter is being discussed at this late hour, because it is most important from the point of view of the welfare of the community at large. For that reason I shall intervene in the debate in my small way. There is a tendency to regard this as a Scottish question, but it affects also the whole of England and Wales. It is a very important issue.
It is a great pity the Labour Party has not taken up this matter officially and arranged a full day's debate. We have always said that we want to help the people to get houses, and this matter affects the ability of local authorities to provide homes in the future for their


people. We know what a serious handicap interest charges are to the building of houses for rent.
We look at this question in various ways and come to various conclusions according to the line we want to emphasise. I am satisfied that when one considers the question of what working people can afford in rent one can delude oneself by thinking that with full employment and people working overtime working people can afford this. There is a general impression that the ordinary working man can afford it.
Nearly 3 per cent. extra has gone on to local government loans, and that of itself affects the cost. On a £1,200 house £36 a year extra is paid in interest alone—about 14s. a week. That 3 per cent. is a great penalty. If people throughout the country had to pay an economic rent there would be almost a revolution. It is only because the costs of housing are being spread over the rest of the people of the country that there is ability to implement this policy.
In order to get the support of the people at large, the Tory Party has made it a plank of its policy that it is out to help individual ownership of homes, but instead of helping the ordinary working man to pay for his house the Government have done the opposite. As a party they say they want to do something for working men who are in such difficulty and want to be independent. Those men like to have their own houses, the Conservative Party tells us, and the Government still pretend they are going to help the working man. It is not that the Conservative Government are unable to help them, but that they definitely decided that in this matter they will not help. They have given millions of pounds away in other directions. The question is, what is the most important direction in which to bring help to the people, particularly the ordinary working men, whose support they ask? They could do something in this direction.
When putting forward a proposition I always try to analyse the matter and get to know the cost, because I think there is an obligation on anyone making a proposition to say how much it will cost. I was told that there was to be a Division tonight. I understand that the Standing Order is suspended and we may

have a Division at ten o'clock. [An HON. MEMBER: "Does the hon. Member know the time?"] Is it vital that we should finish this debate at ten o'clock? I do not think it is as vital as all that. The question whether the debate should continue for a few minutes after ten o'clock depends surely on the problem which we are debating. I am sorry, Sir Charles, but that was a digression from my argument arising from interruptions.
This is a very big problem for the country at large, and in my view I am entitled to continue my argument for a few moments. I will finish in three minutes and will time myself by the clock. What will be the cost of this Amendment? I await anxiously for the Minister to tell us. I have not had much time in which to analyse the matter, but I understand that the maximum liability here is £400 million and that if we calculate 3 per cent. on £400 million it amounts to an interest of about £12 million.
If that is correct, cannot the Government afford £12 million to help the ordinary working men of this country to get houses of their own or to have cheaper rents? Rents are becoming far too high. Throughout the land they are rising to such an extent that if any troubles befell the nation they will involve great hardship. Even on present wages they are a hardship and they will be a great problem in the future. We must do everything possible to reduce them.
Assuming that the cost to the country of this provision would be £12 million, let us consider the money which we have spent in the past. How many millions did it cost to give the investment allowances to the shipowners? What of the £30 million to £40 million allowed in special reliefs to those with high incomes? What of the 10 per cent. allowance in respect of fuel-saving equipment? When the spirit is willing it is astonishing what can be done.
I have emphasised in the best way that I can the need of the lower income groups, and I presume that I am speaking on behalf of the Labour movement in advocating these views tenaciously, strongly and to the best of my ability. This is one of the vital problems for the Labour Party. I therefore support the Amendment.

10.0 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. J. Enoch Powell): To conform as far as possible to the arrangements to which the hon. Member for Wallsend (Mr. McKay) referred, it may be convenient if I intervene at this stage. Although in accordance with your initial Ruling, Sir Charles, the debate has taken place on the three Amendments on the Order Paper, I think only the first has been referred to substantially, and perhaps I might confine my reply to that.
This Amendment would reduce to 3 per cent., not, as I think the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) may have supposed, the rate paid by the Exchequer upon moneys which it borrows, but the rate paid by local authorities upon loans advanced to them by the Public Works Loan Board. The question whether that rate of interest should be so charged must be viewed against the background of the policy which covers access by local authorities to the Public Works Loan Board and which, as I explained on Second Reading, is as announced by my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal on 26th October, 1955
that all authorities who can borrow on their own credit shall make full use of the capacity of both
the stock and the mortgage market. In fact, as the Committee knows, in the last sixteen or seventeen months local authorities have financed about three-quarters of their capital expenditure by access to the market.
In those circumstances, it must follow that the residual lending by the Public Works Loan Board—that small minority of local authority capital expenditure which is financed by the Board—must be financed at the same rates that rule in the market, and at which the majority of local authority borrowing takes place. As my right hon. Friend said on the occasion which I have mentioned, it must be at
a rate reflecting…the credit of local authorities of good standing in the market for loans of comparable periods."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th October, 1957; Vol. 545, c. 215.]
If that were not the rate at which the Board lent, there would be the most intolerable and indefensible discrimination between the rate of interest paid by local authorities who borrowed in the market and that paid by local authorities

who borrowed from the Board—between the rate paid upon one borrowing and another. It would be quite indefensible that three-quarters of the borrowing by a whole range of local authorities should be at market rates while those authorities who happened to borrow from the Board should obtain those loans at a preferential rate.

Mr. Willis: Surely the Minister will agree that it is not the credit of local authorities which is at stake but the cost of money on the public market. It is the interest rates prevailing in the market.

Mr. S. O. Davies: Is it not the Government who have determined the rate of interest in the public money market?

Mr. Powell: It is the Government who have determined the policy whereby the majority of this borrowing shall take place in the market, and it is to that policy, in reality, that the issue raised by the Amendment goes. On that policy I would just mention the remark of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis), who said, "Here are the resources with which to build a house for £1,500 or £2,000. Why is it necessary to charge this or that rate of interest upon it?" I will give him the answer. Those resources—the £1,500 or £2,000—have to be provided in one of two ways; by taxation, which imposes a burden upon the present generation in the present year, or by borrowing. If they are to be met by borrowing, then borrowing must be at the rate which will attract the necessary investment and the necessary savings.

Mr. Willis: I am sorry to disagree with the hon. Gentleman, but surely the basic fact is that we have the men and material. However we bring the two together to build the house, they are there. If we had no money system at all the two requirements would still be there.

Mr. Powell: The resources must be contributed by the community in one of two ways—either by taxation or by genuine lending. If they are to be provided by genuine lending they must be obtained at rates which will command the necessary amount of investment. If we seek to invest beyond that and at lower rates we are merely financing the investment by inflation.
The anxiety has been expressed a number of times during the debate that the


prevailing level of interest may have the effect of repressing and damaging public investment. In fact, over the last six or seven years of relatively high interest rates the real investment in the public sector has gone ahead year after year at a rate which was never known in the days of low interest rates. What this policy does

is to ensure that this high level of investment in the public sector shall continue, but that it shall be financed honestly and not by inflation.

Question put, That those words be there inserted:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 115, Noes 145.

Division No. 14.]
AYES
[10.5 p.m.


Ainsley, J. W.
Herbison, Miss M.
Parker, J.


Albu, A. H.
Holmes, Horace
Parkin, B. T.


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)
Pearson, A.


Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)
Hunter, A. E.
Peart, T. F.


Baird, J.
Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)
Pentland, N.


Benson, G.
Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.
Plummer, Sir Leslie


Blackburn, F.
Janner, B.
Popplewell, E.


Blenkinsop, A.
Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.
Prentice, R. E.


Blyton, W. R.
Jeger, George (Goole)
Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)


Bowden, H. W. (Leicester, S. W.)
Jeger, Mrs. Lena (Holbn &amp; St. Pncs, S.)
Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)


Bowles, F. G.
Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)
Probert, A. R.


Boyd, T. C.
Jones, Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)
Proctor, W. T.


Brookway, A. F.
Jones, Jack (Rotherham)
Randall, H. E.


Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)
Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)
Reid, William


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)
Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)


Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
King, Dr. H. M.
Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)


Clunie, J.
Lawson, G. M.
Ross, William


Collick, P. H. (Birkenhead)
Lindgren, G. S.
Royle, C.


Collins, V. J. (Shoreditch &amp; Finsbury)
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Short, E. W.


Corbet, Mrs. Freda
MacColl, J. E.
Silverman, Julius (Aston)


Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
MacDermot, Niall
Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)


Cullen, Mrs. A.
McGovern, J.
Skeffington, A. M.


Darling, George (Hillsborough)
McKay, John (Wallsend)
Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank


Davies, Harold (Leek)
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Sparks, J. A.


Davies, Stephen (Merthyr)
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Stones, W. (Consett)


Deer, G.
Mann, Mrs. Jean
Taylor, John (West Lothian)


Edelman, M.
Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.
Thomas, George (Cardiff)


Evans, Albert (Islington, S. W.)
Mitchison, G. R.
Viant S. P.


Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)
Moody, A. S.
Warbey, W. N.


Fienburgh, W.
Morrison, Rt. Hn. Herbert (Lewis'm. S.)
Wheeldon, W. E.


Finch, H. J.
Moss, R.
White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)


George, Lady Megan Lloyd(Car'then)
Moyle, A.
Willey, Frederick


Grey, C. F.
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. (Derby, S.)
Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)


Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)
Oram, A. E.
Willis, Eustace (Edinburgh, E.)


Hamilton, W. W.
Oswald, T.
Winterbottom, Richard


Hannan, W.
Owen, W. J.
Woof, R. E.


Hastings, S.
Paling, Rt. Hon. W. (Dearne Valley)
Yates, V. (Ladywood)


Hayman, F. H.
Palmer, A. M. F.



Henderson, Rt. Hn. A. (Rwly Regis)
Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:




Mr. Simmons and Mr. Wilkins.




NOES


Aitken, W. T.
Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)
Grosvenor, Lt. -Col. R. G.


Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S.)
Cole, Norman
Gurden, Harold


Alport, C. J. M.
Conant, Maj. Sir Roger
Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N. W.)


Armstrong, C. W.
Cooke, Robert
Harrison, A. B. C. (Maldon)


Atkins, H. E.
Cooper, A. E.
Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)


Baldock, Lt. -Cmdr. J. M.
Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)
Heath, Rt. Hon. E. R. G.


Baldwin, A. E.
Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Henderson, John (Cathcart)


Balniel, Lord
Cunningham, Knox
Hicks-Beach, Maj. W. W.


Barber, Anthony
Currie, G. B. H.
Hill, John (S. Norfolk)


Barter, John
Dance, J. C. G.
Hinchingbrooke, Viscount


Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)
Davidson, Viscountess
Hirst, Geoffrey


Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)
du Cann, E. D. L.
Holland-Martin, C. J.


Biggs-Davison, J. A.
Eden, J. B. (Bournemouth, West)
Hope, Lord John


Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel
Elliott, R. W. (N'castle upon Tyne. N.)
Hornby, R. P.


Bishop, F. P.
Farey-Jones, F. W.
Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Dame Florence


Black, C. W.
Finlay, Graeme
Howard, Hon. Greville (St. Ives)


Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. J. A.
Fisher, Nigel
Howard, John (Test)


Braine, B. R.
Gammans, Lady
Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral J.


Browne, J. Nixon (Craigton)
Gibson-Watt, D.
Hulbert, Sir Norman


Bryan, P.
Glyn, Col. Richard H.
Hutchison, Michael Clark (E'b'gh, S.)


Butcher, Sir Herbert
Goodhart, Philip
Hyde, Montgomery


Butler, Rt. Hn. R. A. (Saffron Walden)
Graham, Sir Fergus
Iremonger, T. L.


Campbell, Sir David
Grant, W. (Woodside)
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)


Carr, Robert
Grant-Ferris, Wg Cdr. R. (Nantwich)
Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)


Channon, Sir Henry
Green, A.
Jennings, J. C. (Burton)


ChiChester-Clark, R.
Gresham Cooke, R.
Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)




Joseph, Sir Keith
Maydon, Lt. -Comdr. S. L. C.
Speir, R. M.


Joynson-Hicks, Hon. Sir Lancelot
Medlicott, Sir Frank
Spence, H. R. (Aberdeen, W.)


Kaberry, D.
Moore, Sir Thomas
Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)


Keegan, D.
Nabarro, G. D. N.
Steward, Sir William (Woolwich, W.)


Kerby, Capt. H. B.
Neave, Airey
Storey, S.


Kershaw, J. A.
Nicolson, N. (B'n'm'th, E, &amp; Chr'ch)
Summers, Sir Spencer


Leavey, J. A.
Nugent, G. R. H.
Sumner, W. D. M. (Orpington)


Leburn, W. G.
Oakshott, H. D.
Teeling, W.


Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)


Lindsay, Hon. James (Devon, N.)
Page, R. G.
Thompson, Lt. -Cdr. R. (Croydon, S.)


Linstead, Sir H. N.
Pannell, N. A. (Kirkdale)
Thornton-Kemsley, C. N.


Lloyd, Maj. Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.)
Pike, Miss Mervyn
Tilney, John (Wavertree)


Lucas, P. B. (Brentford &amp; Chiswick)
Pilkington, Capt. R. A.
Turner, H. F. L.


Mackeson, Brig. Sir Harry
Powell, J. Enoch
Vickers, Miss Joan


Mackie, J. H. (Galloway)
Prior-Palmer, Brig. O. L.
Wall, Major Patrick


McLaughlin, Mrs. P.
Profumo, J. D.
Ward, Rt. Hon. G. R. (Worcester)


Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)
Rawlinson, Peter
Webbe, Sir H.


Maddan, Martin
Redmayne, M.
Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)


Maitland, Cdr. J. F. W. (Horncastle)
Ridsdale, J. E.
Wills, G. (Bridgwater)


Markham, Major Sir Frank
Roper, Sir Harold
Woollam, John Victor


Marlowe, A. A. H.
Russell, R. S.
Yates, William (The Wrekin)


Marshall, Douglas
Sharples, R. C.



Mathew, R.
Spearman, Sir Alexander
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:




Mr. Legh and Mr. Hughes-Young.

Motion made, and Question proposed,That the Clause stand part of the Bill.

10.15 p.m.

Mr. W. E. Wheeldon: I want very briefly to refer to the point made by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury when replying to the debate on the Amendments. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) said that the Government have kept control of local authority expenditure and, therefore, have no need to resort to high interest rates. Almost every penny piece of local authority capital expenditure comes within the survey or scrutiny of the appropriate Minister. He can say whether it shall be approved or not. The matter is completely in his hands. Why, therefore, is it necessary to have these extortionately high interest rates for local authority expenditure? That was the point to which the Financial Secretary did not address himself. I hope that in his further reply to this debate he will have something to say about it.
If that control is present, as it is—nobody can deny it—it follows equally that to resort to a policy of 6¾ or 7 per cent. interest rates is a policy whose object is penal and is designed to transfer money from working-class families and from the working-class population in general to people who are better off. The result of this policy by the Government in respect of the Public Works Loan Board and of interest rates generally is to put an intolerably high burden on the poorest of our population. It affects

working-class people not merely in my constituency, but in every constituency.
The matter is mainly one of housing, because in the case of most local authorities at least 60 per cent. of their outstanding loan charges are in respect of houses. Within that context, the burden, therefore, falls on the rents of municipal houses. In respect of the other 40 per cent.—that is to say, roads, schools and all other capital expenditure—the burdens are, of course, borne by the ratepayers generally.
I should like to clinch the point by giving an illustration from my own city, Birmingham. We are building—or trying to build, so far as the Government will allow us—municipal houses and flats. At the moment, the average cost of a three-bedroomed municipal house in Birmingham is £2,148. The total interest charges payable on such a house during the sixty years of redemption of the loan is £6,727. The interest charges, therefore, are three times as much as the original cost of the house.
Surely there is something wrong with a system whereby charges of that kind are imposed on tenants of working-class houses. By way of comparison, had we been operating today on the rate of interest charged by the Labour Government when it left office, the figure would be not £6,727, but £2,500. That is a very considerable difference.
I have one other figure to complete the argument. That figure of interest charges means that the weekly rent of a three-bedroomed house, excluding rates, is £3 4s. 5d. per week—a very high rent


indeed. I hasten, in fairness, to say that that ignores subsidies, but we all know that, as far as general housing is concerned, there are no subsidies today. Of that £3 4s. 5d. weekly rent, no less than £2 3s. is in respect of interest charges. I do not want to give too many figures, but there is one I must give for comparison. In terms of the rent, labour costs account for 7s. 11d. as against the 43s. for interest charges.
Those figures demonstrate, first, the existence of the problem, and secondly, that it is one which should be solved, and solved quicky, in the interests of the community at large. It is entirely antisocial that this sort of thing should continue and we certainly ought to do something about it. The Government so far have not given an answer. They themselves are responsible for forcing up interest rates, and they must be held—

The Deputy-Chairman (Sir Gordon Touche): I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member, but the question of interest rates was decided on the Amendment and we cannot go into it in detail now.

Mr. Leslie Hale: I want to catch your eye on this Question in a moment, Sir Gordon, and I want to deal with the point. Surely we are entitled to discuss on this Question whether we should now permit the Government to have the Clause, having regard to their refusal to accept the Amendment. The position is that the Bill charges the Government to lend money at rates encouraged by the present economic policy, and it would be my wish to submit to the Committee that in those circumstances this Bill should not be passed.

The Deputy-Chairman: We cannot discuss the Amendment which has been rejected by the Committee. The Committee has come to a decision on that.

Mr. Wheeldon: I was not trying to discuss the Amendment, Sir Gordon, which has already been negatived by the Committee. I was trying to discuss the important question of interest rates. As a matter of fact, I had almost concluded my remarks. I wanted to say that neither from the point of view of economics nor from the point of view of social matters is this policy justified. Therefore, we are entitled to make a demonstration on this matter and to show how working-class

people and municipalities are being imposed upon today.

Mr. Hale: The point I ask the Committee now to consider is whether at this juncture the Public Works Loan Board serves a useful purpose, and whether there is any point in earmarking money to be lent by the Board under such restricted conditions and under such Government dictation as to interest rates that it fails entirely to fulfil the functions for which it was at first created.
The Financial Secretary will know that there have been many amendments and many amending Acts since the original Loan Commissioners were founded. He will also know that they were founded primarily for two reasons. One was that there were a great many institutions capable of doing a public good which were unable to obtain adequate finance. As one example there were little housing associations. As another example there were little educational foundations. The second reason was that they were rather at the mercy of mortgagees if they borrowed their money in the open market. They were open to the possibility of having their schemes frustrated by fluctuating interest rates. Therefore, it was felt that there were certain organisations working for the public good which should have, under Government control and direction, the benefit of Government finance.
That was really the original purpose, and I would say to the Economic Secretary that if he looks at the powers of the Public Works Loan Commissioners, which have not been amended in this respect, he will find they would have included, for example, the financing of voluntary schools. I suggest to the Financial Secretary that it is still well within the power of the Public Works Loan Board today, if it desires to do so, to undertake finance in this direction.
I venture to ask the Committee for a moment to look at one example of how this Bill will work and what its effects will be if we approve of it. I do not want to delay the Committee at this hour of the night, so I shall be brief. Neither do I wish to traverse ground which I have traversed before, particularly because I want to be courteous to the hon. Gentleman who has the Adjournment tonight, who is anxious to get on with it, and who wants to get home to bed.
For a moment I will refer to Oldham, because it is twenty years almost to the day since I went up there to interview the Labour executive and was adopted as their Parliamentary candidate; and twenty years is a long time in a comparatively short and uneventful life. There I became acquainted, perhaps for the first time in detail, with the tremendous problem that confronted the local government body of a great industrial town which, with all its energy, its industry and brilliance, had suffered a long period of unemployment, had seen its major industry pass through a period of recession, and which had been unable to raise large sums by way of loans because the rate opportunities were too low, and, indeed, because it had not had very progressive corporations.
After five years in this House I had the advantage of making a little survey of what had happened in Oldham while interest rates remained at a reasonable level, and while it was possible for a progressive corporation to raise finance and to try to tackle problems which had been left untouched for so long. It was a moving experience.
I do not want to put this in a highly controversial sense. Most hon. Members will know to what I am referring. We visited the social institutions. There are still in Oldham houses built in the 'nineties, and there are still back-to-back houses. I beg hon. Members to remember this when they talk lightly about the housing programmes of 1945 and 1946. I remember the Mayor of Oldham coming to me in 1947 and saying, "Now we are getting finance, and building labour is available. Our priority No. 1 will be the abolition of pail closets." Sometimes these things sound funny when we talk of them in the spaciousness of Westminster, but this was in the main street of the town. For the first time we were able to take the buckets out of the closets and initiate a sanitary service.
The Medical Officer of Health for Oldham has said that there are 10,000 houses in Oldham which should be condemned. It is only the fact that the population was reduced in the bad days of unemployment that has made the housing situation there as tolerable as it is. At all events, with no land, drains or sewers outside the borough, we tried to tackle

the problem. It will be within the knowledge of the Committee that the Labour Government laid many additional problems on local authorities. Many welcomed the burdens. They were given new powers to deal with grievances. They were enabled to provide schools for special children, and separate hostels for the aged, things which were almost unheard of.
Last Saturday I saw something in which Oldham leads the world, its separate housing for aged people. I saw a woman of 80, deaf, dumb and nearly blind, just able to read large print written on a slate, who is living by herself in a single, one-storey house built by the Oldham Corporation at low borrowing rates and completed just before the first big rise under the present Government. It is a model to the world. It is frequently visited and inspected, and gives joy to all who see it.
I will not trespass on the indulgence of the Committee, but will summarise what I have to say in a few sentences. I also visited a mental hospital which is still in a Dickensian building, a building which ought not to be used to accommodate the mentally sick, but there we have transformed the treatment. Men are turned out cured after an average of eight or nine months, whereas a few years ago there was not a knife and fork in the place for fear of people committing suicide, and people entered the place and never left it. Now we run dances there, and former patients go back to dance with those who are not yet cured. We have introduced a social life to the place.
All this was done because finance was made available. This enabled the work to be done by the corporation of a town which can never be wealthy, with an industry which has never been among the very highly paid ones. By these improvements the whole social scene was transformed, leading to goodness knows what dividends in decency, in creating a new feeling of progress, a new feeling of companionship, a new feeling of understanding in the community.
This year we examined what we could do. We knew we could not go on building houses at the current interest rates. We knew the people would never be able to pay the rents. Even now, when we have a long housing list, people who


are offered three-bedroomed houses say, "We need three bedrooms, but we cannot afford them, no matter how great our need is." So we decided to put things in order of their priority. We knew that the town that had been going forward was now going back. Not an hon. Member from Lancashire will disagree with what I say. If any hon. Member doubts it, I will take him to Oldham and show him. Oldham is built on seven hills. I hope tomorrow to go to the only other town in the world that boasts of being built on seven hills.

Mr. W. A. Wilkins: Bristol?

10.30 p.m.

Mr. Hale: No. What I say is true. We know that we are going back every year. I saw the chairman of the housing committee bearing the burden of trying to do something in these circumstances, so we said, "We will concentrate on schools. It is the major need. The schools are overcrowded."
We have denominational schools which were built thirty, forty, even fifty years ago for a limited population and which now, fifty years later, are accommodating more than twice as many pupils than they were built for. There are children who walk two or three miles to school across dangerous cross-roads. We have the land, the plans and we have allocated the finance, yet the Government turn down the lot.
The noble Lord who is now—

Mr. Lindgren: A bellringer.

Mr. Hale: —bell ringing. That is the position. But I do not want to elaborate this matter any longer. I would only say—

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: One sentence.

Mr. Hale: I will accept the noble Lord's invitation to deal with one point.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes), who always makes very important contributions to our debates, said that Damascus could borrow at lower rates than Edinburgh. In point of fact, we were told in Oldham that we could get our finance from abroad if we could import money, and get it cheaper. This is the Government who were to lend money to Colonel

Nasser eighteen months ago, at half the price that they are lending money with which to build houses at Oldham. I think it is better to help Colonel Nasser to build dams than to drop bombs on him. But why was Nasser No. 1 priority and the Mayor of Oldham No. 16?
Why is it that interest rates in this country are going up while, at the same time, they are going down in every other country? We hear the financial experts say that Wall Street and the American Treasury's reduction in interest rates has come a little too late to deal with the difficult situation and that they ought to have done it sooner.
We have had the privilege tonight of hearing the Minister of Housing and Local Government, who, with his experience at the Treasury, speaks with authority on the matter. He announced his policy almost in terms of the Bible:
For he that bath, to him shall be given: and he that bath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath.
The right hon. Gentleman then went on to say that the man who had it did not like all this; that giving him extra interest did him a lot of harm and that it might even result in a drop in the value of his securities, although the only securities that have dropped are Government securities.
I know it sounds silly—I thought it silly when I heard it—but it was not I, but the Minister, who said it. I thought it daft, and if that is what the Financial Secretary thinks, I agree with him. I am only putting it to him because he was not here when the pronouncement was made. Everyone will at least agree with the Minister of Housing and Local Government that no one likes paying high interest rates. If he is satisfied that no one likes receiving them, then it seems that the Government have an opportunity of achieving in a limited sphere the unanimity which they have never been able to achieve before.

Dr. J. Dickson Mahon: I can, I want to be as considerate to the hon. Gentleman who is to have the Adjournment as my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) has been so far. In the short time that I propose to speak on the Question before the Committee, I intend to address myself to the part of the argument used by the Financial Secretary in defending the Clause against the Amendments.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned that, despite the fact that the Clause operates on the basis of high interest rates, it has not meant that there has been a fall in the level of investment in the public sector. I do not wish to seek to refute that now. I am sure that on some other occasions other hon. Members more competent than I am may be able to do it very effectively. I merely want to draw the attention of the Financial Secretary to the fact that it is not the Government's intention in future.
All the arguments against the Clause sought to show that there would be a decrease in the volume of public investment, especially in housing. When the Financial Secretary argues, as he did tonight, that high interest rates do not discourage public investment, he runs completely counter to the declarations of his own Government about housing in the future.
I must remind the hon. Member that the Secretary of State for Scotland told us some time ago that we must expect the level of council house building in Scotland to drop in 1959–60 to 20,000 local authority houses. Proportionately, that is substantially greater than the drop being experienced in England and Wales. While I do not want to appear to wear parish pump clothes tonight, it is true that the housing position in Scotland is worse than that in the United Kingdom as a whole.
My own town builds, or tries to build, 500 houses a year. It has about 2,500 houses which are recognised as slums, as well as an enormous amount of overcrowding which can be compared in severity only with that of Glasgow. No matter what the political colours of its members, my local authority knows that it must continue to build at the rate of 500 houses a year if its housing problem is to be solved in the foreseeable future. If it builds 500 houses a year, no matter what party is in power, no matter what legislation it defies, no matter what obstacles appear, it will still take forty years to solve its housing problem.
If the Government have their way, we will have to bear our share of the burden of a reduction in the Scottish housing programme. If the Government propose to reduce local authority building in Scotland from 28,000 to 20,000 a year

by 1959–60, then my town will build not 500 but 400 houses a year—and that in spite of the contention of the Financial Secretary that high interest rates do not discourage investment in the public sector of the economy. That may have been true in the past—although I doubt it—but, on the Government's own protestations, it will not be true in future.
If he deigns to reply to the debate, I hope that the Financial Secretary will deal with that argument. Is this the only mechanism which the Government will recognise for distinguishing between priorities, or are there no priorities? Is this the synthesis of the Government's philosophy? There are two towns near mine which are both reaching the end of their housing difficulties and I am very glad to say so, but they will not bear the same burden of sacrifice in their housing programmes which my town will bear and which most people in most parts of the United Kingdom will bear in different ways.
I put it to the Financial Secretary that it is clear that the sacrifices will not be equal, will not be fair, will not be just. There must be a more reasonable way of sharing the sacrifices and of ordering the priorities. My right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) once said that Socialism was the language of priorities. I hope that good social sense will be the language of priorities. While Conservatives do not believe in Socialism, I never like to think that they are completely devoid of social sense. If they have any social sense, they will be willing to find ways and means of trying to distinguish, even in the framework of their own monetary policy—and probably in a Bill like this—between various priorities.
I ask the Financial Secretary not to answer these arguments merely intellectually and dialectically, which he takes so much pride in doing. In his argument the Minister says that high levels of interest have not meant lowering the levels of investment in the public sector. That is an argument from the past; let us look to the future and to the Government's intentions.
I ask the Minister whether that is true in housing, and whether it is going to be true? If it is not, why cannot the Government find some other mechanism to make the allocation of houses more just? I speak for hon. Members on both sides


of the Committee who represent areas in which the housing situation is bad when I ask why there should be a blanket of uniformity over the whole country which fails to distinguish areas that are badly off? It is unjust, and it is wrong for Ministers to pretend that it is just, as the Financial Secretary did when seeking to fortify the Clause against the Amendment.
My burgh council wrote to me yesterday asking me to protest. I contented myself with voting in the Division for the Amendment, but I felt compelled to rise on the Clause and to add my voice to those of other hon. Members speaking for local authorities all over England and Wales. I ask them to note that the Convention of Royal Burghs in Scotland has protested against this system, which is so socially unjust that it must lead to a deceleration of progress in the housing of the people.

Mr. A. J. Sparks: The Financial Resolution would place £300 million at the disposal of the Public Works Loan Commissioners until the passing of the next Public Works Loans Bill, which is an annual event. I would ask the Minister whether it is proposed to maintain the normal practice and to produce next year a Bill authorising a further sum of money. It strikes me as odd that the Minister should ask for sanction to advance £300 million to local authorities when, I suspect, he does not undertake to advance anything like that sum. It is significant that the Minister, in moving the Second Reading of the Bill, said that in 1956–57 the amount of money taken up by local authorities from the Commissioners was £121 million. Why does the Minister want £300 million for this year?
Would he undertake that if we vote the £300 million it will be granted in the coming year in loans to local authorities upon application? I hope that the Committee will take particular note of the Minister's answer; he will give no such undertaking whatsoever. The policy of the Government has been to deny to local authorities the facilities which we, as the House of Commons, provided for them. What right has the Minister to do that? He has no right to ask for £300 million when he is only expecting to advance £100 million or £120 million. If the

Committee decides that £300 million shall be advanced by the Commissioners on application, the Minister should carry out the wishes and directions of the Committee.
10.45 p.m.
The right hon. Gentleman is getting this money with no intention of carrying out the purpose of the Act. The policy he is pursuing is to refuse local authorities funds that we vote for this purpose and he refuses on the basis of a very peculiar formula. Local authorities go to the open money market to borrow money and, when they cannot get a satisfactory loan in that market at a rate of interest they regard as satisfactory, they go to the Public Works Loan Board and ask for the money.
The Board says, "We do not care what you want the money for, you may be starving for houses, or for roads or schools or a whole host of things, but we do not care two hoots. What we want to know is what you have done to get the money in the open money market." If the local authority says it has done its best to get money at a rate of interest it regards as reasonable, the Board says, "In our opinion you have not sufficiently pledged the credit of your authority."
When asked what it means by that, the Board cannot say, but the inference when local authorities are confronted with a refusal by the Board is that the authority has not been prepared to take out loans at 6¾ per cent. or 7 per cent. Therefore, the Minister is exercising pressure on local authorities to drive them into the open money market to take up loans at the highest rate of interest that prevails.
On the Second Reading of the Bill, the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. L. Thomas) made an interjection in a speech made by an hon. Member on this side of the Committee. He seemed rather puzzled. As far as I remember, the hon. Member for Canterbury said, "Are you trying to infer that local authorities are borrowing at short term to finance long-term projects?" The answer is "Yes, they are." Quite a lot of local authorities are financing long-term projects on the basis of short-term loans and some of them are likely to be in grave difficulties in the next few years if the money market fluctuates considerably. If those


who finance money on short term want their money back quite a few local authorities will not be able to provide it. In an event of that kind they hope the Minister would come to their rescue.
Because they cannot get advances from the Public Works Loan Board, local authorities are being driven by officials of the Board to go to the open money market. They do not know whether the present rate of interest is likely to be stabilised for a time. It would be disastrous for the country if it were. The chances are that the Bank Rate and the rate of interest charged for loans in the open market may come down. We cannot see them going up very much higher. If they do, they will bring disaster to the economy of the nation. Therefore, local authorities cannot afford to undertake long-term loans at the prevailing rates of interest of 6¾ per cent. and 7 per cent. They cannot saddle their ratepayers with a burden of that kind for twenty, thirty, forty, fifty or sixty years. They are driven to the open market to take up short-term loans at very high rates of interest. The interest on die two- or five-year period at present is 7¼ per cent.
If the Minister carries out the desires of the House, we hope that some of the money involved in the Clause will go to people who want to buy their own homes. Many people next year will be put out of their houses by the Rent Act and will have nowhere to go. They may be faced with the prospect of having to buy the house in which they live or be put out on the streets.
The Minister of Housing and Local Government has been at some pains to obscure this problem of the burden of interest rates on such persons who will have to pay and of the facilities provided by local authorities of which such displaced tenants may hope to take advantage. In the debate on the housing situation the other day the right hon. Gentleman made a statement which was thoroughly misleading. He said that people who want a home of their own can go to local authorities and get an advance of 90 per cent. of the valuation of the house and in certain instances 95 per cent.
That was true up to about two years ago, but the number of authorities who

are doing that at the moment is very small, and soon there will be none at all. They cannot afford to take out long-term loans at the present high rate of interest and re-lend the money under the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act or the Housing Act, 1949, saddling themselves for many years with a high rate of interest and lending the money to borrowers who want to buy their homes.
What would be the position in a year or two if the rate of interest dropped from 7¼ per cent. to, say, 5 per cent.? At the moment, the authorities have to pay 6¾ per cent. for long-term loans and 7¼ per cent. for short-term loans. Let us assume, for argument's sake, that the rate falls from 6¾ per cent. by 2 per cent. to 4¾ per cent. What will the borrowers do? They will not continue, for twenty years or more, to pay 7½ per cent. interest on the money which they have borrowed from the local authority. They will go to another source, where they can get the money at 4¾ per cent., and they will pay back to the local authority the outstanding debt on the house.
When the local authority has the money paid back to it, what will it do? It cannot repay it to the people from whom it was borrowed, because it was borrowed for periods from ten, fifteen to twenty years. The authority will have to hold this money at 6¾ per cent. for the whole period of the loan. A treasurer of any local authority would not be so unwise or so unjust to his ratepayers as to saddle a local authority with long-term loans at 6¾ per cent. and run the risk of having a lot of the money repaid because owner-occupiers were able to borrow later from another source at a lower rate of interest. Local authorities are driven to borrow short-term in the money market at the much higher rate of interest of 7¼ per cent.
I said just now that the Minister of Housing and Local Government was trying to confuse this question of high interest rates for house purchase. He has recently been urging local authorities, if they are to advance money for house purchase, to do so under the Housing Act, 1949. In Circular 54/57, which he has issued to local authorities, there is a paragraph which runs as follows:
The Minister reminds local authorities that they have power to make loans for house purchase; and he will he willing to consider new


or revised schemes which will provide for a varying rate of interest on advances under the Housing Acts.
Some of this money will be going for that purpose, but I would ask the Minister what, precisely, is meant by that paragraph.
The idea is to try to safeguard the owner-occupier if he borrows money at 6 per cent. and the Bank Rate goes down. With a varying rate of interest he will then reap the advantage, but the local authority will be left stranded. There is no provision for a local authority being able to receive its loans at a variable rate of interest. No one in the open money market today will advance money to local authorities on the basis of a varying rate of interest. We know that until the present scarcity of money the practice in some cases has been for lenders to include a break clause that after the first seven or ten years the local authority may repay the loan. But local authorities cannot borrow money on such terms today; such loans are not to be had. While high interest rates prevail in the open market every lender wants to lend his money at that high rate for as long as he possibly can.
Unless local authorities can get their loans advanced to them at a variable rate of interest they cannot pass on anything of that nature to the people who borrow money from them to buy their homes. So, once again, we come back to the position I tried to illustrate just now, in which the local authorities, upon repayment of outstanding mortgages, will be left with sums of money carrying very high rates of interest which they cannot repay until the expiration of the loan.
This question needs serious examination, if the Government are anxious to do something to help people who want to buy homes of their own. If they really want people who will be put out by the provisions of the Rent Act next year to be able to buy their own homes, it is their duty not only to request the Public Works Loan Board to advance this £300 million to local authorities, but to advance it at a reasonable rate of interest, the benefit of which will be received not only by the local authorities but by the people who borrow that money from them.
11.0 p.m.
Once again, I ask the Financial Secretary to give an undertaking to the Com-

mittee that the £300 million which we are voting for him and the Government tonight will be disbursed by way of loans to local authorities during the forthcoming year, or will he tell the Committee whether the rate of advance to local authorities last year by the Public Works Loan Board of £121 million is to be approximately the rate of advances this year? It will probably be less than that if present policies continue. The Committee, therefore, should know what he proposes to do with the money. If he does not intend to advance this amount to local authorities, he ought not to come to the Committee to ask for it. On the other hand, if he asks for the money, and the Committee agrees to provide it, then it should go to the local authorities, the people we are speaking for tonight.

Mrs. Joyce Butler: I sit on the finance committee of a local authority, and I am, therefore, very well acquainted at first hand with the enormous difficulties which local authorities are facing in financing their work at present. They are finding it an increasing burden, and more and more they are seeking, as some of my hon. Friends have said, to find ways in which they can decant some of their responsibilities and devote their energies to those tasks which seem to them most important. My hon. Friends have already said that many authorities have suspended loans for house purchase. They have done that not because they regarded these loans as unimportant, but because of the intolerable financial conditions under which they have to carry out their functions.
I hope that the Financial Secretary will deal with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks), that it is not sufficient to do as the Minister of Housing and Local Government has done and say that he will welcome and consider schemes for varying rates of interest to borrowers. It is necessary to consider, also, the point my hon. Friend made about the possibility of varying rates of interest to local authorities. If the hon. Gentleman cannot answer tonight, I hope that he will seriously look into the matter. It is the only thing which will help local authorities to continue making loans for house purchase, and such loans are more than ever important today.
The particular point I wish to refer to concerns the figures given in the Report of the Public Works Loan Board. There is a figure given of 7,414 applications for loans totalling £128 million, of which 7,182 were approved, for a total of £94 million. That is a misleading figure, giving a quite incorrect picture of the needs of local authorities for loans. Especially where local authorities are in the London area within easy reach by telephone of the Public Works Loan Board, it has become the practice, when an authority wants to borrow, for the treasurer, before making a formal application, to telephone and speak to an official of the Board, asking what are the prospects of being able to borrow whatever sum it may be. The official will reply, "It is quite hopeless; it is no good making the application. You must try on the open market."
I suggest, therefore, that this figure is completely misleading, because the applications shown as having been made are, in the main, applications made after treasurers have ascertained that the Board will grant them. There are, of course, some which are not, from local authorities a long distance from London; but, in the main, local authorities do ascertain, before making formal application, whether they are likely to get the money or not. If we could have the correct figure of the sums which they have informally asked the Board to provide, a very much greater total would be shown.
Reference has been made to all the responsibilities of local authorities. I wish to refer to a new responsibility which is dealt with in a recent circular from the Ministry of Housing and Local Government to local authorities concerning housing accommodation for old people. In that circular, which many authorities will not yet have considered, the Minister points out that
Some old people may be affected by the decontrol provisions of the Rent Act, and a number may have, within the next twelve months, to find accommodation better suited to their means. While some who may find themselves in this position will no doubt be able to make their own arrangements, there may be others who will need help and may well look to their local authority for it.
That is an additional burden placed on local authorities, who already do not know how to finance the projects they

have in hand. The Minister goes on to recommend that
They should also consider the possibility of acquiring and converting suitable existing properties,
that they should make available grants and loans to owners to carry out conversion schemes, and that they should be
willing to purchase by agreement any suitable larger houses belonging to old people who would like to become tenants of small council dwellings.
He adds that
Loan sanction will be available for proposed purchases.
He does not say anything about loans being available through the Public Works Loan Board. He does not say anything about loans being available at a reasonable rate of interest.
Is it not quite monstrous that the Government should set free the landlords and enable them to ask extortionate rents and to sell their houses for any price that they can get and to lay the responsibility for rehousing the tenants thus evicted on the local authorities, to ask them to purchase houses to house these people, to refuse them loans through the Public Works Loan Board and to insist upon local authorities going on the market, paying these high rates of interest and coping with all the difficulties that that involves because the Government have laid upon them this responsibility which they have deliberately created? This seems to me a quite intolerable imposition on local authorities.
Unfortunately, the Minister knows perfectly well that he is quite safe in laying this burden on local authorities, because he knows that they are public-spirited and will do their best to rehouse these unfortunate elderly people. Surely, in laying this responsibility on local authorities, the least that the Government can do is to see that the money is available through the Board for this purpose and that it is at a reasonably low rate of interest. To do otherwise is most unfair.
I hope that the Government will look again at this suggestion that they are making and see whether there is not some way in which they can help local authorities to carry out this additional burden without demanding from them such enormous financial sacrifices as they will have to make.

Mr. Lindgren: The first point which I should like the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to deal with in a little greater detail than he was able to do at an earlier stage is his statement, which I found quite remarkable, that the higher the rate of interest the greater is the degree of investment. I understood him to say that the rate of investment by public authorities is higher now than it was when we had a Labour Government with rates of interest of 2 and 3 per cent.
I have always understood that the Government's reason for putting up the Bank Rate has been to restrict capital investment. The hon. Gentleman's statement, however, suggested that the higher rates of interest imposed by the Government have tended to create an inflationary situation because of a greater degree of public investment. His reply might be that the control by the Labour Government over the field of activity in which local authorities participate meant that there was less actual money spent on housing, sewerage, roads, and so on, during that period. I tell him frankly, on behalf of the local authorities, that they would much prefer a low rate of interest with a restricted field of capital investment to a high rate of interest and inability to engage in any investment at all. What it means now is that local authorities are completely unable to enter the field of investment, of desirable public health investment, housing and so on.
The Financial Secretary said that local authorities which can now borrow on their own credit can go to the open market. He rightly said that three-quarters of them now have to go to the open market rather than to the Public Works Loan Board. It is true that the larger authorities can raise money on the open market. On Second Reading, I referred to Nottingham City Council, a local authority of good repute, which was able to raise more than it wanted on the open market at a lower rate of interest than that being asked by the Board for money lent to minor authorities.
The credit of the local authority in no way determines the rate of interest which it has to pay. The big complaint of local authorities is the fact that they are forced to go to the open market, and can go to the Board only if they are such a small authority that they cannot get

money on the open market. This means that the Board's rate becomes a stepping-off rate for the open market's interest rates. In the old days a local authority which could go to the open market or the Board could play one off against the other, accepting the loan from the one with the lower rate. Local authorities, particularly the smaller urban and rural authorities, now cannot go to any broker and get money at a rate lower than that of the Board. Thus, whereas previously the Board's rate was the ceiling, it is now the stepping-off ground for the open market.
I am not in any way criticising the Financial Secretary in my next remarks. On Second Reading, one or two points were raised to which he did not reply. He was willing to reply, but he was prevented from doing so by one of my hon. Friends, who objected to his speaking twice. Therefore, I again put one of the points to the hon. Gentleman.
The situation brought about by the Government means that local authorities going to the open market can be divided into two classes. County councils, county boroughs and municipal boroughs of over 50,000 population are automatically trustee stock authorities, which gives them a wide range of activity. But the field of activity of urban and rural district councils and municipal boroughs of under 50,000 population, whose resources are less than the others, is automatically restricted, because they are not trustee stock or trustee security authorities.
Therefore, trustee savings banks, and the large number of superannuation schemes, and administrators restricted to dealing in trustee stock, simply cannot lend to these small urban and rural authorities even if they so wish. I submit that it is more than a point for consideration by the Government if it is to force local authorities on to the open market. The Government should put them all on the same level and make them what I would term trustee securities.
I would like to turn now to the point of the sixty-year period and the flat rate of interest. Previous discussions with financiers and representatives of the Public Works Loan Board have always convinced me that, in making a loan for a long period of years, there should


be an assessment of what the market will be over the whole of that time, charging the rate of interest to cover that period. It seems strange to me that the actual rate of interest charged is the rate obtaining at the time when the loan is granted.
Why we should saddle local authorities, be it in connection with housing, sewerage, or water schemes, for example, with a charge which means that people fifty years hence will still pay 6¾ per cent., is something I cannot understand. Because the Government have got themselves into financial difficulties and have had to bring the Bank Rate up to 7 per cent. is no reason for saddling people many years from now.
Where the justification is for that I just cannot see. As I said during the Second Reading debate, I came into local government in the early 1920s and the local authority with which I was associated had to deal, not only with the money for day-to-day jobs, but pay 6½ and 7 per cent. from the rates for activities in the 1970s and 1980s. Some of the money borrowed in 1919 and 1920 is still being paid for at 6¾ per cent., and it is to the credit of a Labour Government, and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton) that, during his period as Chancellor of the Exchequer, interest rates were lowered from what was then being charged on Public Works Loan Board money to 4½ per cent. for long periods.
If we are concerned with a temporary expedient now—one which the Government do not want to continue and which nobody in the country wants to continue—why should we, on this £300 million, saddle local authorities with a very high rate of interest for, say, sixty years? Surely the Government can give some indication that the rate will be varied in accordance with the Bank Rate as that operates from time to time.
The last point I wish to make is one with which I dealt on Second Reading, but to which the Minister could not give a reply. My hon. Friend the Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks) has referred to it tonight, and it is that local authorities are worrying because of the considerable sums of money which are out on seven days' call. They have done that, to some

extent, to meet the hardship likely to arise from long-term borrowing and, as I have pointed out, the saddling of future generations. Because the Bank Rate has not gone down they borrowed at six months and then seven days' call, and the amount on seven days' call is now very considerable. I know of one comparatively small urban district council which has well over £½ million at the moment on seven days' call.
I grant to the Financial Secretary that if there were a call on that short-term money no Government could stand by and see local authorities in default. It would be some assurance to local authorities if it were stated on the authority of the Financial Secretary that some of the £300 million that we are making available to the Public Works Loan Board would be available to local authorities in the event of their getting caught on the seven days' call—if, in fact the money is called in quickly. As I have said, that is particularly important as the previous arrangements which they had with the banks for bridging loans to cover the period until they could go to the open market and find cheaper money are to be stopped by the banks on the instructions of the Government.
I hope that we shall get a reply from the Financial Secretary on some of the points which we have raised before we pass the Clause.

Mr. Powell: The hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) reminded the Committee that the Public Works Loans Board was originally brought into being to provide a recourse for local authorities which were unable or which found it otherwise difficult, to raise capital for their operations. Today the Board is still performing that function as a means of recourse for local authorities in that position, and it is for that reason that I feel confident that the Committee will agree to renew the lending powers to the extent set out in the Clause.
The hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks) asked me about the speed with which the money would be called upon. The existing £300 million which was provided by the Act which received the Royal Assent at the beginning of August, 1956, would at the present rate have run out next July, and, equally at the present rate, the limit which will supersede it and


which is provided for in the Bill, will be reached in about 20 months' time. Therefore, it is quite unrealistic for the hon. Member to say that facilities are being provided of which the Government are preventing local authorities availing themselves.

Mr. Sparks: What did the hon. Gentleman mean by his statement when moving the Second Reading of the Bill that last year only £121 million went to the local authorities? Was it more?

Mr. Powell: I gave several figures representing total advances for different periods. If the hon. Gentleman will work out the averages he will find that the weekly or monthly rate of lending over the last year or two accords with the figures which I have just given.

Mr. Sparks: £10 million a month.

Mr. Powell: The hon. Gentleman raised the problem of a local authority lending money for house purchase when faced with repayment by the mortgagor in the event of interest rates changing. Let me take the two cases. Suppose the local authority has borrowed the money which it has advanced in that way from the Public Works Loan Board. If the borrower wishes to repay the capital prematurely then the Board will accept premature repayment without charging any premium—[Interruption.] I am dealing with the two cases. In the case of borrowing from the Board there is no need for the local authority to feel anxiety on that score. Where the money is borrowed on the open market, as the hon. Member himself and many other hon. Members who have taken part in the debate have pointed out, the local authorities are, in fact, borrowing for comparatively short periods. That fact, combined with the general and well-known fact that their total local loan fund is charged not at the marginal current rate but at a much lower average rate provides them with sufficient cushion and resilience to meet the repayments which, I agree, may be expected as interest rates fall.
The hon. Lady the Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Butler) suggested that the figure of applications received and accepted by the Public Works Loan Board and mentioned in the Board's Report was

phoney in that it did not take account of applications which had never been formally made because the local authorities had, in accordance with Government policy, been directed elsewhere, namely, to the market.

Mrs. Butler: I said that it gave a misleading picture.

Mr. Powell: The hon. Lady will realise that unless those authorities succeed in meeting their requirements on the open market they would have to go back to the Board, and that it is that picture of the Board performing its function as a recourse of local authorities who are unable to borrow satisfactorily on the open market which the figure provides.

Mrs. Butler: They were told that it was no good going to the Board because they would not get the money.

Mr. Powell: I am not prepared to believe that if a local authority tries to raise money on the open market and fails it does not go back to the Board and make its application. Of course, it is within the knowledge of all of us that that happens.

Mr. Sparks: The hon. Member does not seem to realise that local authorities have done exactly what he has said and the officials of the Board have refused point blank to let them have the money.

Mr. Powell: Surely the figures which the hon. Lady quoted from the Board's Report prove the contrary.
I want to deal with two or three questions put by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren). He was quite right to draw attention to the anomaly which exists at the moment between local authorities whose issues are trustee stock, and who thus have an advantage in obtaining access to investable capital, and those whose stock is not of trustee status. He may have overlooked the fact that that will be put right by the Local Government Bill now before Parliament. He will find that Clause 50 of that Bill removes that anomaly and so meets that point completely.
He asked about the relation between the period for which the loans are made by the Board and the amortisation period of the capital investment in respect of


which the loan is given. There is now no connection between the amortisation period and the period for which the Board will make an advance, subject to a minimum of seven years below which the Board will go only if the amortisation period is less than seven years. Subject to that minimum, the Board will lend for periods shorter than the amortisation period of the capital projects.
He referred to the proportion of seven-day call money which local authorities held at present. I agree that that is an important consideration and a careful watch is kept upon the level of seven-day money which is held by local authorities. I can assure the Committee, that the available figures tend to show that the proportion, taken generally, is very low and that there is no reason to feel anxiety about the proportion of seven-day money held.

Mr. Sparks: Does the hon. Member agree that it depends on the time the Bank Rate remains at its present figure? The longer it remains there, the higher must be the short-term borrowing.

Mr. Powell: I am not sure that I quite follow the hon. Member's meaning.
The Clause in itself does not involve the rate of interest. It would remain valid whatever were the movement of the Bank Rate and of the Public Works Loan Commissioners' rate, during the period which the Royal Assent to the Bill would open. But I hope I may be allowed briefly to refer to the remarks made by the hon. Member for Small Heath (Mr. Wheeldon) and the hon. Member for Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon). It is true that the Government, through loan sanction and other means, have control of the projects, and of the total amount of the capital projects, in which local authorities engage sand that, as the hon. Member for Greenock said, the Government have many methods at their disposal of influencing priorities. Within the last year or two we have seen a shift in priority in many fields of local authority investment. There has been a shift of emphasis from general housing to housing for the purpose of slum clearance. It is not in that context that the policy governing advances from the Public Works Loan Board belongs; that policy is concerned with the sources of

capital for investment, and I close by reminding the Committee that the obligation of the Government is to ensure that the capital investment of local authorities is met by genuine savings and is not provided by inflation. This is done by ensuring that the majority of that investment is met upon the open market and that the remainder is met by the Public Works Loan Commissioners at rates of interest which correspond with those ruling on the market outside.

Mr. Sparks: A very poor answer.

Mr. Douglas Glover: A very complete answer.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 2 to 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule agreed to.

Bill reported, without Amendment; read the third time and passed.

Orders of the Day — NATIONAL SERVICE (MEDICAL EXAMINATION).

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Barber.]

11.33 p.m.

Mr. Leslie Hale: Mr. and Mrs. Brooks live at 61, Kingston-avenue, on the Yew Tree Estate, in the Urban District of Chadderton, in the County of Lancaster, and in the constituency of Oldham, West. They have been a well-respected and contented family, despite the fact that fortune has not treated them kindly.
They had two sons, one aged 22, and the son Colin who was born on 3rd July, 1938, and had reached the age of 18. The elder son was serving in the Forces. Then the father, who had worked regularly, was seized with a serious illness, and for two years has been almost unable to work; so a disproportionate share of the burden of keeping the family fell on the 18-year-old youth.
He, too, had not been fortunate. He was well liked and well respected among his friends; but as a lad he went to a convalescent home in Southport, had a severe fall, and sustained a severe fracture of the hip and knee. Although he


made a substantial recovery he became to an extent lame. His foot was permanently turned outward, although he could walk and ride his bicycle. He was, to that limited extent, an incurable cripple and was debarred from taking part in any form of athletic sport or endeavour.
Whether he was suffering from epilepsy at the time he went to Southport or whether the epilepsy was consequent upon the accident no one seems to know. So far as the parents know, it is not a case of idiopathic epilepsy; there was no sign of epilepsy before the accident.
It is fair to say that for someone suffering all these disabilities, the fair treatment for epilepsy is to continue one's normal activity. All the medical authorities say that the most unwise thing to do is to cease from such activities as one is capable of performing. He attended his work regularly and to the best of my information he had no attack of the disease and no fit from the time he was 15 years of age.
He was called upon to register for military service and did so register and then had instructions to report at Manchester, which has its city boundaries actually abutting on the urban boundaries of Chadderton. He was instructed to report in the early hours of 27th May last. The lad had none of those disqualifications for military service of a social character to which reference has been made in other Adjournment debates. I have no wish to introduce personal questions into this at all, but if one looks at those previous debates one finds that attention has been directed to questions of disqualification for military service on apparently slight examination. When one compares them with the circumstances of this case, one can understand why the old adage is remembered in Oldham about there being one law for the rich and one for the comparatively poor.
The lad left his home at 7.30 in the morning of 27th May and returned to his home at 4.30 p.m. in a state of very deep distress. He told his parents that the medical examination had been very exacting. He had gone furnished with a certificate from his own doctor, which said he was unfit for military service, but that certificate referred only to his epilepsy and did not make reference to the fact

that he was permanently crippled in the leg, presumably because that was obvious to any observer.
The lad came back in a state of distress. He ate no food at all and told his parents he had had a very rough time. He said he had been sent to hospital for examination. That, I gather, may have been for the X-ray photograph of the chest. He said he had been sent to the Salford Hospital for examination. He ate no food but managed to doze in his chair and at 9 o'clock his mother suggested that he should go to bed. He had a glass of milk and went to bed. Next morning he rose at 9 o'clock, again in a state of distress, and complained again of the medical examination. He said it had upset him very much, but he decided to go to work. He cycled to work and, as far as I know, performed his ordinary duties. He arrived home some time after 12.30. At five minutes to one he was sitting in his chair and said to his parents, Goodbye", and at one o'clock he died.
No doctor could be called in the time. It is fair to say that no doctor had been called the night before. As an epileptic, of course, his parents were acquainted with the fact that he was capable of having seizures. A post mortem examination was performed on Colin Brooks by order of the coroner of Rochdale and it disclosed, as the death certificate records, that death was due to status epilepticus. Status epilepticus is a very acute stage of epilepsy. The medical textbooks say it occurs only after either a number of consecutive fits of epilepsy within a limited time, or after some fairly severe testing experience which has brought about a wholly new condition. I have no wish to put the case higher than I am asked to put it, but from all inquiries we have been able to make he had had no fit since he was 15 years of age and he was now on the verge of being 19. It was two-and-a-half years since the last known epileptic fit.
I do not suggest for a moment that there was anything like physical cruelty, but it is a matter for consideration whether this lad, so obviously crippled, a lad 5 ft. 3½ ins. in height, a lad with a long medical history and with more than one visit to convalescent homes, who had suffered from severe epilepsy and was quite unfit, should have been unnecessarily detained for examination


for something like seven hours and sent for an X-ray report on his chest, which had no relevance to his case.
He made one complaint in particular. He said that the doctors kept making efforts to straighten out the leg. I know that that is denied, and I do not want to add any unnecessary controversy, but if that be true, then we have this treatment of a man with a fracture of the hip and a fracture of the knee, with the leg turned permanently outwards. These are matters beyond controversy, known to the whole of his circle of friends.
If one compares examinations of this kind with the reports of examinations which have taken place where the man had a social qualification for exemption, such as being able to play cricket or to drive racing motorcars or to take part in athletic contests, one is entitled to ask what are the classes of treatment which are given at examinations of this kind. Time after time in the House I have complained about the treatment of men who apply for industrial injury benefit for pneumoconiosis, silicosis, byssinosis and similar diseases or men who apply for pensions for disability. They are rarely given a hearing of more than 15 minutes, often have no examination at all, or when they have an examination it is so perfunctory in nature that the reports of specialists over years are overturned in a five-minute examination and pensions and disability allowances are refused.
But when it comes to military service we find a sick and crippled lad of 5 ft. 3½ ins. in height who is away from home for about seven hours, who returns home in such a state of distress that the following day, whether by direct result or not—I do not say that it is—or whether by the aggravating effect or not, which is certainly more likely, and who dies suddenly in his chair at the age of 18 years 9 months. He died within a minute or two or some sort of seizure and without any other manifestation except the distress which he displayed from the time he came back from the examination.
I wrote to the Minister about the matter and he said that he would make inquiries. He later wrote to me and said that he had made inquiries, but I understood from the letter that the inquiries were made only from the officials and the doctors who were there. If this examination went on all day, there were

others awaiting examination that day who would be able to tell us a very great deal more about what transpired than we can ascertain by merely inquiring of people who, however honourable and distinguished, are necessarily interested parties. To be fair to the doctors. I understand that they say that they do not remember the case very well; they say that there was nothing outstanding at all, and as far as they know no special steps were taken. That is rather surprising if the disabilities were as obvious as I am instructed that they were.
Those are the facts which I desire to bring before the House tonight. I say that on those facts it is the duty of the Minister to make the fullest possible inquiry into the accuracy of the statement put forward in the best of faith by people of the highest respectability, by people who have lost their young son in very tragic circumstances—a son to whom they were devoted, who, on the testimony of everyone in the district, was deeply loved and deeply respected and whose death is very deeply regretted.

11.43 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour and National Service (Mr. Robert Carr): The first thing which I want to do and ought to do is to express sympathy with the parents and family of Colin Brooks who have been bereaved in this way. I imagine that that is obviously the thought and feeling which forms in our minds. I realise that it is because of their feelings of distress that the parents will look to outside causes which may have contributed to their tragic loss. Indeed, it is right, if any doubt exists, that this suspicion should be voiced, and it is right that the hon. Member should raise the matter in the House tonight. In reply, I certainly do not want to say anything which could add to the distress which the parents have already suffered.
Nevertheless, it is a serious charge which is being made, because, in effect, it is no less than that the doctors and others who conducted this young man's examination treated him in a way which contributed to his death. If I am sure—as I am—that this charge is without substance, I feel that it is my duty, in defence of those concerned, to contradict it categorically, and explain as fully as possible my reasons for doing so.
As soon as my right hon. Friend learned of Colin Brooks' tragic death, through the letter which the hon. Member wrote to him on 11th June, he ordered an inquiry to be made. That inquiry was no routine affair, involving the exchange of a few memoranda and letters; it was conducted personally on the spot, in Manchester, by my Department's Chief Medical Officer for National Service, and another senior officer from headquarters, together with the Regional Medical Officer for the region. They together interviewed the chairman of the medical board the doctor who examined Colin Brooks' physical capacity, including his limbs and the movement of his joints, and also the Ministry of Labour staff who were assisting the medical board at the time.
All these people were closely questioned about the circumstances of the examination, and I am as satisfied as I can be that the accounts they gave hang together, make a consistent whole, and prove, in my opinion beyond any reasonable doubt, that nothing occurred in connection with the examination which could be held to blame for Colin Brooks' death two days later.
It is true, as the hon. Member said, that we did not seek out the other people who attended as prospective National Service men at that board. If there had been any reasonable doubt there might have been a case for that, but I really feel that the answers we got, crosschecked by seeing these different people, were sufficient. Perhaps the best thing I can do is to give an account of the procedure followed in this case.
First of all, it should be stressed that neither the Ministry of Labour nor any member of the medical board had any foreknowledge of Colin Brooks' physical condition. He was therefore examined under our normal arrangements, which are designed to deal with young men expected to be in normal health, even if some may prove to be unfit for military service. Here I should like to take up what seemed to me to be the only regrettable part of the hon. Member's speech—his theme about there being one law for the rich and another for the poor, and his suggestion that if it is socially desirable for some men to be turned down—such as cricketers or racing motorists—they receive a more cursory examination than did Colin Brooks.
I am certain that that is not so. I am sure that all those men had proper, normal medical examinations. If the hon. Member ever comes across any evidence which suggests that anybody is rejected for National Service without proper examination, I should like to look into it.

Mr. Hale: I hope that the hon. Member will not ask me for that. The question was debated in the House a year or two ago. No one wants to rake these matters over again, but if the hon. Member will turn up the reports of the debates and see what was said in the House a year or two ago he will find at least two named cases—I do not like to introduce names into this—of people who were probably performing a far more useful function by not being in the Forces, and who were performing athletic feats involving the utmost demand upon their physiques, and who have done so ever since.

Mr. Carr: I want to keep to the case in question, but I thought I ought to reject any suggestion that because Colin Brooks was not a famous name, or was in his particular social class, he was treated in any less kindly or thoughtful manner. As I say, nobody in the medical board or in the Ministry of Labour had any foreknowledge of his state, and therefore he was given the normal examination treatment. Any man who produces medical evidence in advance that he is unfit for military service or that the normal military examination procedure would constitute hardship or risk would be offered a simplified examination, and I am bound to say that it is a pity in this case that some such steps in advance were not taken. Then, perhaps, Colin Brooks might never have had to travel to the medical board and undergo the medical examination.

Mr. Hale: How would he know?

Mr. Carr: I think that it is generally known, because it is done, and our Regulations make provision for it. I think that any doctor or parent who is anxious about a boy making a journey like that would normally take that step. I do not want to make too much about that, except to point it out, because I am convinced that when he got to the medical examination he was treated normally and reasonably.
The hon. Member asked if he had an X-ray examination when he was obviously in this state? It happens that the normal routine of all these medical examinations is that all people who attend for a session are X-rayed. That is the first step. So Colin Brooks arrived at the medical board centre at 8.45 and, together with all the other people who came for that session, he was taken in a special bus to the X-ray centre for miniature mass radiography. That is a routine part of all examinations. He was then brought back to the medical board centre where he arrived at about 10.30 a.m.
He then took the normal next step in the examination, which is the written intelligence test with questions set out in a booklet. That test, together with the other routine documentation, was completed by about 11.30 a.m. He was then told that there would be a luncheon break until about 12.15. Immediately after that luncheon break, he completed the usual questionnaire about his medical history, and it was at this point that he disclosed that at the age of 12 he had suffered from fits.
He entered the actual medical examination room at about 12.45, and he left the medical board centre at about 2 p.m., that is, about 1¼ hours later, after having been placed in Grade IV, which, of course, meant that he had been adjudged unfit for military service.
During the actual medical examination, he was seen, as is usual, by five doctors. The first doctor, as is usual, checked his medical history, his mental capacity and emotional stability. It was at this stage, as is appropriate, that Colin Brooks produced a medical certificate from his own doctor saying that he was suffering from epilepsy. The doctor also at this stage elicited the fact that he had suffered from a leg injury, although Colin Brooks told that doctor that this had ceased to trouble him. There was, however, nothing about this on the medical certificate, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned, neither did he refer to that leg injury when completing the form giving his medical history at an earlier stage. The second doctor checked his ears, nose and throat and teeth in the normal way.
We come now to the third doctor, who was the one responsible for the

examination of the limbs, joints and general physique. This doctor was particularly closely questioned during our inquiry because this was the only possible stage of the examination when the question of trying to straighten Colin Brooks' injured leg could have occured, as has been alleged. The doctor concerned clearly remembered examining Colin Brooks. He could not recall every detail of the interview, but he assumed that, as usual, Colin Brooks was asked to make the normal physical movements, including knee bending, arm stretching, etc. But the doctor says that an extensive examination of Colin Brooks' physical condition such as is usually carried out was not carried out it was not necessary because it was obvious to this doctor responsible for this section of the examination that Colin Brooks was unfit for military service. So he was passed on to the fourth doctor, who made the routine test of pulse, heart, chest and abdomen.
He came next to the fifth doctor, who is chairman of the board and whose task it is—and, of course, was on this occasion—to review the other doctors' findings, form his own impression, and complete the grading. As already mentioned, the chairman immediately put Colin Brooks in Grade IV, that is, graded him unfit for military service.
When questioned during our inquiry, the chairman of the board could not particularly recall Mr. Brooks from among all the others attending during the board's work that day, but he made the point—I think it is a fair one—that he is quite certain that he would have remembered if any man had appeared before him in a distressed condition. The medical board's clerical staff, who also were most closely questioned, stated that Colin Brooks had been dealt with in the normal way and that to the best of their recollection he had shown no signs of distress in their presence. Certainly, they said, when they saw him after the examination to pay him his fares and his lost earnings, he made no complaint about his treatment any more than he showed any distress.
We have made a fairly close analysis of what happened during the medical examination. It brings nothing unusual to light other than the fact that the part of the examination dealing with physics condition and limb movements was less comprehensive and stringent than normal


because it seemed to the doctor responsible for that part of the test that Colin Brooks would certainly be graded unfit for military service and, therefore, ought not to be put through the full rigour of the tests which are normally carried out at that stage.

Mr. Hale: I appreciate the Parliamentary Secretary's careful and thoughtful answer, but I refer him to his original letter, in which it was said that one of the doctors had reported that Colin Brooks was unsteady and emotional in his behaviour and very much underweight and that, notwithstanding that, he was probably put through the whole of the series of exercises, including knee-bending, arm-stretching, physical movements, and so on. It seems to me that this lonely lad of 18 years of age, with a long history of illness, with a certificate from his doctor that he had epilepsy, who was seriously crippled, going there alone, already probably in a nervous condition, to be examined for military service, who was subjected to an intelligence test, sent off to a hospital, examined by five doctors and put through arm-stretching, physical exercises, and so on, certainly must have had an emotional experience which disturbed him a great deal. I appreciate however, the careful way in which the matter has been dealt with and the way in which the Parliamentary Secretary has replied.

Mr. Carr: I had not quite finished. As I have one or two minutes left, there are one or two things I should like to say. I had certainly completed the main part of my case.
The doctor who made the remark about Colin Brooks' unsteadiness and emotional stability and the fact that he was under weight, was the third doctor to whom I have referred, who is quite categoric that he put him through only the initial movement tests before he realised that the man was obviously unfit and spared him the rest of the tests. That doctor categorically states that at no stage did he attempt to straighten Colin Brooks' injured leg.
There is only one other point with which I wish to deal. I do not wish to stress this heavily, because I do not want to say anything which might cause distress and I certainly do not want to throw doubt on anything that the parents

have said in their loss. We did, however, make other inquiries locally. From the inquiries made of Mr. Brooks' own doctor and from the police, we are informed that Colin Brooks collapsed in the street while riding his bicycle on the Wednesday morning. Moreover, we understand that although his own doctor had given him a great deal of treatment over a period of six years, neither his doctor nor his partner was called to see Colin Brooks between his visit to the medical board and his death two days later.

Mr. Hale: The morning after.

Mr. Carr: No. He came back from the medical board—

Mr. Hale: He died on the Tuesday morning. He was examined on the Monday.

Mr. Carr: He was examined on Monday, 27th May, and he died shortly after noon on Wednesday, 29th May. Neither on the Monday evening nor the Tuesday nor the Wednesday morning, therefore, was his own doctor called in.
We have looked into this case carefully. It is a tragic case. It is a pity, perhaps, that advance information was not given about this man's condition. I will certainly look into this point, because we want to learn from things that happen, to ascertain whether any measures should be taken to draw the attention of parents and other people more than is done at the moment to the possibility of applying for special treatment, and because I feel that had this man been advised to give a full account of his condition in advance he might have been spared the journey. But he made the journey—

Mr. Hale: He went to the doctor whose services the hon. Gentleman is now extolling and from whom he has obtained private information behind the patient's back.

Mr. Carr: That is unfair. I should like to close as I began, by expressing my sympathy with the parents but also defending the way the doctors treated the man at the medical examination.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at one minute past Twelve o'clock.